Synergy
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: By a visitor reader request. This new story is being tackled as a sequel to Contamination, an Earth 2 TV series story that resolves the aired cliff hanger episode, All About Eve, that I wrote and posted to the site here about three years ago. No summary will be written for this one to prevent spoilers as this story will be driving deeper into the new plot begun in Contamination.
1. Chapter 1

Synergy (Sequel to Contamination, an Earth 2 TV series story that resolves the broadcasted cliff hanger episode, All About Eve.)

by Anotherjaneway

Devon Adair, narrating.. "We have abandoned Spring Orchid Landing and Bennet's sleeper ship, leaving it to burn underneath the literal mountain of Morganite ore that the Terrians swiftly excavated to eradicate the fifty year old mutated Eden Phage we found in Mary and Mother-By-Choice. It's been a month on the move and I am still haunted by E.V.E., once a tool in my enslavement to a cryobed, now isolated alone, locked two hundred miles in orbit on the Council's satellite, with no means to contact us ever again. I am not comforted by that knowledge, nor is my conscience eased with my newly recovered health and freedom. Since the day the Reilly module went insane, I've realized that my life has completely changed. I am no longer a leader. I... don't want to be one any more. I am seriously regretting my decision of convincing the group into coming to this place so far from the stability and yes, even the political gauntlet of risks, surrounding the Stations. We haven't yet found any game or living edible plants to supplement our hydrolizer's supposedly infinite supplies beyond the eye stalks the Terrians gave us to propagate. Yale has explained why. And it's not a theory. It is a fact that we're seeing evidence of, everywhere, every day. G889 is dying. And we, as humans, are the cause. Extinction is such a terrifying word. It's even worse than death. For extinction means that not only are you dead, your children and grandchildren will never even have a chance of being born. I can't bear that idea. Am I responsible for an entire world slowly losing all the life it once had? Was my saving Uly's life worth that?"

True Danziger, narrating.. "I try to act brave but in my head, I am really, really scared. Kitty is sad and he won't eat. He's been getting sicker every day. Julia tells me that there's nothing she can do to help him. She says Kitty is pining away piece by piece, because he can't find any other Kobas to play with. I don't believe her! Not at all. But my dad says what she tells me is true. He told me Kitty's not smart enough to hang onto hope like we can. He says nobody can fix a broken heart. *sniff* I think I understand that. When I was little, I lost my mother, and I nearly died inside."

It was noon. A gust of wind blew pink dust up into the sky from the dead grasses surrounding the Eden Advance members, with a low moan, cutting through the lifeless silence.

"Pow!" Uly said as he pulled the electro trigger of the unloaded Mag Pro rifle that Cameron had hefted onto his tiny shoulder. "Got him!" he shouted in triumph.

"Got who?" chuckled the burly Australian Cargo kneeling by his side on the gray sand ridge. They had just complete a perimeter check around the convoy and this was the boy's reward for running the whole way as exercise.

"A Z.E.D. Right in the n-!"

John Danziger crowed out an expletive in French to drown out the boy's crude talk about man parts. "Merde! When you're no longer an off-shoot, then you can Transrover talk, Uly.  
Not a second before then. My ears are burning right off and all the women folk are frowning. See?" he said, whipping a grimey hand back towards Bess Martin who was watering a roof full of yellow eye stalk planted synth trays on top of Morgan's vehicle.

The curly, long tressed young woman's scowl grew dutifully stronger for the boy's benefit. "I believe the word you're looking for is testes." she supplied.

"Testy?" asked Uly curiously. "I'm not mad or crabby." he said, passing back the gun to their current convoy sentry.

Yale took up the lesson glibly, much to Devon's amusement. "Ball sack. There. That's a safe answer. One you can better understand."

Uly let out a chortle that was half Terrian warble. "I get it! So that's what John says itches when he drives in the sun too long."

"Hey!" said the big man, buried up to his elbows in mapping fiber optic coils. "Enough about my nether regions, all. Where did you guys stick Zero?"

Cameron replied. "He's scouting twenty clicks north. There's less dying vegetation that way."

"And less coughing at rotting fumes. Very good." piped up Julia, going through diagnostics on her diaglove arm band. "Congratulations, Cammy. You were paying attention at what was said at debrief this morning. I'm sort of impressed." she said with a dry smile.

Cameron snorted and took up his seat next to Alonzo in a sand rover after getting Uly rebuckled into his buggy next to True who was holding a blanket bundled Kitty. "Did you hear the part about saving soap rations? You were in the shower using some for ten minutes four seconds today, Heller."

"Were you spying on me?!" she sputtered, knowing that he was carrying the group's magnifier binoculars.

"No, ma'am. As if. Zero was. And it was he who shared that observation with me for inclusion into tonight's up and coming reserves and supplies report." said the Cargo with indignation.

Solace piped up to lighten a little tension. "I spied on you when you were in the shower. No raised eyebrows for me?" he said, regarding Julia with a smirk.

The rest of the group loudly whistled, applauded, and cat called in hilarity at that confession which turned the Doctor's face a fiery red.

Sitting off to one side, Devon Adair assessed the mood of the group deftly, keeping out of the active ribbing which she knew was good for morale. ::And there's our most vulnerable spot today.:: she decided, seeing True, who wasn't giggling or even looking up from her Koba's pale face at all of the antics bubbling on around her.  
Adair tossed her head at Yale to intervene on her behalf.

With a warm smile and an understanding sigh, the loose dashiki the tutor wore fluttered in the hot breeze as he climbed onto the back of the children's buggy and clung to the rails. "How's he doing today, True?" he asked the child softly with a kind look.

The navy handkerchief bandanna'd garbed tom boyish petite girl replied. ""He's not sleeping even though it's day time. I think he's worse, Yale. I've tried everything I can think of. I'm afraid he'll starve before much longer." she sobbed, her doe eyes filling with fat tears.

"Have you tried this yet?" said the Jamaican cyborg, handing her an eyestalk seedling he had plucked from one of Bess's gardening trays. "These have fashioned themselves into whatever's needed the most for us, so far, with nutrients and antibiotics. Perhaps they will work for Kobas in the same way."

Cooing softly with a low bass sounding rasp, the Koba resisted the lemon vegetable True poked at him only weakly before finally opening his mouth to chew on it.

"Oh, thank heavens." True gasped, giving the warty hippo colored primate a careful, relieved hug.

Yale rubbed her back gently. "Keep giving him all he wants. Perhaps we just need to be like his mother was for while."

Uly added more, wrapping the silver mylar sheet around Kitty more securely. "That's what the Terrians did for me, True. This will work. They told me they won't let him die because he's yours."

John Danziger looked up sharply from his tinkering station. "When did they tell you that, Uly? Zero hasn't detected them today and you haven't been sleeping for hours."

The boy was quiet and immediately hung his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Danziger. A-All right. I made that up... to make True feel better."

"Don't go lying to my girl. Uly, lying never helps anybody in the long run." the mechanic shared with a nod of conviction. "Especially here. We have to depend on each other by telling the truth at all times. No matter how hard that is." His eyes wandered over and met Devon's. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Uly swallowed dryly and fidgetted with his Terrian staff's red ribbons. "Yes, sir."

John Danziger put away his tools with finality. "Okay, let's go, people. We've got a hundred clicks to make before nightfall if we're going to keep on schedule." John said to the group.

Morgan pulled away his VR gear's head set from an ear. "Just how far are we ultimately planning on going, Danziger? Nothing living's shown up on radar or visual for days."

"We go until we spot something. No matter how small. Then we'll stop because then we'll know that we've reached the edge of this extinction zone we're in. What happens after that, we'll play it by ear." he replied.


	2. Chapter 2

Yale, narrating: "I think I have done the right thing. I've told Eden Project what E.V.E. shared with me the day she was banished from our lives forever. There was no hiding it, even if I had wished to try to protect them from the inevitable emotional pain that knowing this answer causes. Life on this planet is perishing before our eyes. Our callous act as a foreign species has doomed any hope of our future syndrome childrens' resettlement. As social animals, we are finding that the cost of our sins is unbearably heavy. We are finding ourselves more isolated now than what we had before we even launched into space from the Stations. I am very afraid. The fact that we can solve nothing, is taking a terrible toll on everybody."

Uly, narrating: "I don't sleep for long any more. My Terrian friends have gone away and left me all alone. I shout in my dreams but they can't hear me. I sure hope with all my heart that it's not because they don't want to. I'm so scared that I'm an orphan like what happened to Mary. My head's empty and my stomach hurts. And worst of all, my eyes are growing darker with each passing day. Noon time doesn't help any more. I see like I used to see in my dreams before I came here. Everything's becoming like shadows. But it's doing that when I'm completely awake! I don't want to go to Julia. I don't want mom finding out. I just want my friends back. I'm supposed to be their Prince. How can I do that if our whole kingdom dies?"

Morgan Martin groaned as he climbed down from the garden bed Transrover with his water buckets.

"Make sure it's water and not acid, Morgan. They look the same. You can't always tell by smelling. Use the litmus paper Julia made before you dip. I don't want you getting burned again."

Bess Martin's husband looked up at her, completely ignoring her automatic rambling litany. "I get up every day. I scrub myself clean with sand. I eat my stalks like a good, dutiful consuming Earth ape, and then I sh*t them out three hours later into the garden bin that eventually gets dumped back on top of our lovely, eyeballed food again. What's wrong with this picture?" he said in a daze of bland emotional fatigue.

"The flies are missing." said Magus, chewing on a non-existent finger nail. "So how can any of that stuff decompose? Does that mean I could be eating what's been inside of-" her finger wavered as she pointed towards where Morgan was bending over the creekbed in analysis..."unadulterated?"

"He's hardly an adult." quipped Bess lightly, sarcastic. "So his is actually.. more like ... kid sh*t. Half of what it could be because he hasn't entirely grown up yet. Doesn't taste too bad." she said, licking her fingers around the bowl of eyestalk eyeballs and water that she was currently nibbling on without utensils. Then her pure anger blossomed. One eyeball disappeared with a pop between her perfect teeth with an audible and visible gray squish.

Magus leaned over her MagPro gun and started puking out her morning breakfast.

John Danziger smiled for the first time in days. But he didn't waste the energy to laugh. "Isn't science a b*tch, Bess? Another lesson was learned in the ranks. Magus, when you're done, go see Julia for a mineral booster. You've lost more than what Yale says is safe. Grab a meal from the hydrolizer to get caught up again. And that's an order."

"I'm sorry, Bess. I didn't mean to insult your husband. It was just the first thought I had come into my head." Magus said, still quivering on her knees in nausea.

"It was stupid." Mrs. Martin said stiffly to the woman. "I'd never grow anything that was dangerous for the group. I've spent all except a year of my life on a real Earth's surface farm. Do you think I'd forgot about the risks of cross contamination? Something that critical to our survival?"

"No, ma'am." said the ashen settler.

But the petite, spiral curled graceful Martin wasn't done yet. "For your information. I rinse everything in acid from the lake to sterilize things and then I rinse ALL food in water before its eaten."

Danziger waited until Mrs. Martin was through, then he ambled over to the woman who was still green about the gills.  
"For disrespectful behavior, Magus, you're going to learn how it's done from beginning to end, from Bess. Starting tomorrow at sunup. Capisce?" said John.

Quickly, to escape her shame, Magus nodded once, tossed her gun to Danziger, and fled.

Devon Adair had a map laid out on top of a roasting boulder that was doubling as a cooking surface. True Danziger had laid out twelve neat spirulina pancakes and was flipping them over when they began steaming with a jammed door hinge. "Smells good, True. Are these snacks for anybody?"

"Help yourself. Kitty can only eat three at a time." said the youngest Danziger diplomatically.

"Thanks." said Devon. She eyed up Yale who was pouring over their schematics with his palm sensor, feeding in the latest reports from Zero on population numbers. "What's the latest?"

"Still no bacteria present. Except our own rogue." he sighed regretfully.

"The Eden Phage." said the page hair styled station elite. "I didn't think the Terrians would be able to contain the infection Bennet set free. Not easily. Using Morganite to sterilize the physical landscape was a very good idea. But nobody planned on stopping the wind."

"Fifty years is an eternity of time for a germ to run rampant." Yale agreed. "Did you know that oxygen on Earth that we depend on, was begun by such life? Earth wasn't always breathable by our standards."

"It wasn't?" asked Uly, walking up behind them, using his staff like a cane. He had on one of John Danziger's pairs of welding goggles and a hat made of burned out drive coil springs.

"No, sprite." said Yale, picking him up and setting him down near the cooking cakes so the boy could steal one for snacking. "Carbon dioxide and at one time, methane was the primary atmosphere. That is, until microbes came into being. Then, the very air was changed permanently by their living and dying processes, into what exists now to this very day."

"So where did this planet's oxygen come from?" the boy asked. "Did it come from germs, too?"

Yale and Devon looked at each other in surprise. Then the cyborg tutor spoke up. "I do not know the answer to that, Uly. Not yet. G889 is not like Earth where microscopic life forms ultimately rule as either diseases or as biological processes which control atmospheric chemistry. Here the very large has the ultimate say over the very small. Have you noticed how the Kobas obey humans or the Terrians? Or how Grendlers and humans do, for the flowers, when the spring orchid meadows are in bloom?"

"Yeah. Terrians told me once that it was because the Mother is the boss." Uly replied.

"She seems to be. Yes." agreed Devon. "We don't know how She communicates with all evolved life on the surface. We don't even know what this Mother is. Do you?"

"No. I only know she talks to me and the Terrians. But why is She silent now, mom? Is it because She died or something?"  
The boy collapsed in his mother's arms and sobbed.

Devon's heart ached for her son. "We don't know what's happening, Uly. Not yet. But I promise you that we will keep going until we find out."

Yale added more. "There is no native bacteria here, Uly, and that is why we have this depopulation problem. Nothing here on G889 has evolved that has any immunity to Earth's introduced cell size invaders. That's because lifeforms so small have never been born here with a chance to develop a synergy long enough to become part of a balanced ecology."

The young Adair actually stabbed his staff deep into the ground so he could lean on it, like a sacrifice, by a wrist.

"This is wrong.. All the dead things we've been finding.." the boy said, with tears in his voice. "Can't you feel it? WE'RE ...all wrong. Even me. We never should have come here in the first place!" he sobbed, throwing down the cake he had grabbed. It landed onto the most center heart of the stove, where it burned to crisp, instantly. Leaping away, Uly disappeared into the dead brush, running away from camp.

"Uly!" cried his mother, getting to her feet.

"Let him go, Devon. He has had a lot on his mind lately. I've seen it. Perhaps he needs time to sort things out on his own." said the tutor.

"But.."

The teacher reassured her. "Zero is watching. He will not allow the boy near any caves or lakes."

Devon slowly sat down, tears of her own forming in her reddened eyes. "Do you think it's time, Yale."

"Time for what?" the big Jamaican man with the robotic hand and temple asked.

"I think its time we try to go find the rest of the penal colonists." she replied, hugging her arms to herself tightly for warmth, in spite of the hot sun. "We've been putting it off for too long. If anyone's discovered a friendlier way to survive on this planet than we have, it'll be them."

A cacaphony of protests split the air above the bonfire at their most recent main night camp.

"No, Devon!" shouted Cameron. "No way! Not in my lifetime..." agreed Travis.

Even John Danziger stiffened up at the suggestion. "Devon, the penal colonists still remember Gaal. He wasn't exactly the nicest guy on the planet. He tried to steal away my very own daughter!"

Devon spoke up. "Gaal had trade dealings with them, John. Remember? He couldn't have acted badly towards them or any business never would have exchanged hands."

For long moments only the blue flames crackling on the fire could be heard. Then their leader who was a mechanic sighed.

"Okay, all right. It's agreed that we need to find new answers. This is one way to do it." John gave in. "The colonists aside, Devon, these abandoned prisoners aren't the only risks we would be facing. Who the H*ll knows how those d*mned Grendlers out in the Waste feel about us humans now since they've learned how to commit murder. I'm sure Commandern O'Neil would be turning over in his grave if he knew we were actually thinking about going back out there to conduct anything, let alone attempting a truce talk."

Morgan reluctantly raised a hand until he was noticed, even through his nervous flinching. "Uh,.. it's been almost a year now since we've landed. Don't you think the Z.E.D. would have wiped them all out by now? They were here first."

The Eden Project group fell quiet as options collapsed around them at the suggestion.

"Only one way to find out." Devon whispered.

"How's that?"

"We send Zero on ahead to investigate." John replied.

Sleep was long time coming for everybody that night. It was as if the dying ground was screaming out its pain into their very hearts.


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn came slowly into the pink sky over the gray hills surrounding Eden Project. The whole tired group felt like they had sand in their eyes and rocks in their stomachs from the tension that had clamped down on them the moment E.V.E.'s planet side module had perished. Perhaps, deep down inside, they all knew that it was because she had been their very last tie to Earth or the Space Stations; the last chance to back out of their crazy sojourn that ended twenty one light years distant from the core of the rest of humanity.

G889 had looked so promising from orbit in all of the sat scans and surveys in the beginning. It had been so like another twin of ancient Earth. The current on-the-surface reality of Earth 2 was proving to be the direct opposite of all of those past remembered visual and physical records.

Alonzo Solace looked up from a clump of dead organic matter that was what they all called pink sage. It used to be a prized flavoring in their nutri-coffee every morning. The pilot wisely did not touch it with his bare fingers, but used a boot heel instead to test its remaining moisture level. The plant shell powdered away to nothingness in the rising, sharp, day wind. "This whole meadow looks like it's been napalmed." he reported neutrally.

"That's a disgusting analogy." Bess Martin spat from her perch over the transrover roof garden trays. "We didn't fry this place. This is the first time we've ever been here."

"True, but we are members of the same species that purposely declared a war on... well, I can't call her Mother Nature.. more like..." said Cameron from his seat on the landrover Solace had been using as pointman vehicle for their convoy. He struggled to form his idea clearly.

"Mother Nuture..." suggested Yale the cybernetic tutor. "G889's sole protector through the Terrians."

"Yeah. Her." said the Australian. "But how did Bennet's sh*theads know about the ground lizards' Sentient God enough to realize that attacking all the plants and animals with the Eden Phage they engineered would weaken Her? Did they even meet the Terrians face to face at all? Can't do much to kill a people off if you don't know they're there or know who their leader is."

"That's probably the one saving grace in this whole sad, sorry mess." John Danziger said through his visi-gear headset to everyone else plugged in to their traveling mode channel.

"They didn't have a clue where the head was. They just got lucky attacking the body." Julia Heller surmised, surprised at Cameron's angle of thought about the planet's ongoing mass extinction. "I've always thought Terrians acts were like some... planetary antibody's. They do seem to want to fix anything that's abnormal. Just look at Uly and Devon."

True Danziger piped up. "Then why aren't they helping Kitty and his race?" she said tearfully. "Kobas are people, too. Aren't they?"

John shifted in his seat uncomfortably at the sound of pain in his daughter's voice. "We only think this planet has a master race or races. Perhaps there aren't any."

Bess Martin murmured. "Like the Sargasso Sea..."

"Huh?" said her husband Martin from the depths of the food and garden transrover.

Yale nodded in agreement. "Scientists centuries ago marveled at the Sargasso. Whole masses of seaweed, some the size of entire countries, had their own microcosm species, miles of mini worlds adrift on the currents. Their combined plant and animal effects were enough to control the weather thousands of miles away over dry land. The blessed monsoons. They came regularly. Or they did not. Fishermen knew it was bad luck to disturb the seaweed. Too many boats tearing up the floating mats was seriously believed to bring on extended droughts back at their home ports."

Devon Adair sighed. "The Gaia Theory. Everything is connected. Each species is just a single part of one whole organism."

"Devon, that can't be true here." said Julia. "There aren't great enough flora and fauna densities over any surface area to have an effect on climate. Life here's sparsely populated. G889's either mostly arid or high elevation like we've seen. Acid lakes and neutral pH water rainfalls. Insect life with unique dimensional travelling physics." she began to list off.

"Still hate those d mned spiders.." John shivered. "Me, too." echoed Alonzo.

Everybody on the channel laughed.

"I think I need one of those now." said Uly, lying limp and strangely sullen in the kid's rover next to True. "To be my seeing eye dog. I've gone blind, mom."

The group galvanized in shock around the boy. Seconds later, Julia, Devon and Bess crowded around Uly with the med bags and the hand and arm sensor.

Devon Adair was beside herself. "What's wrong, Uly? Does your head hurt? A-are you thirsty?" she asked controlling her mother's fear.

"I don't know. No, and I just drank a ton of water half an hour ago." the boy replied, staring off into the maroon sky, unseeing. He began to curl up into a little ball on the rover seat as if he was freezing cold.

"Let me see, Uly." Julia said when Uly fended off the doctor's attentions with her finger sensors over his face with both flailing arms. "I have to scan your eyes and optic nerves to figure out what's going on. Hold still."

"I can't! My muscles feel like they're on overdrive, I'm so scared." the boy whimpered.

"Uly, why didn't you tell us you weren't feeling well when it first started happening?" Devon said calmly into the hair on the top of her son's head as she held him quiet for the doctor. "Julia, is this a seizure?" Adair voiced, frightened.

"I don't know yet. Give me a minute to check the neural activity in his brain. His vital signs are stressed, but still normal." Heller replied, working fast to scan Uly further. "I'll work better in a tent."

"I'll get him into a bed." said Devon, sweeping up Uly into her arms. True took Uly's legs and helped Devon carry the boy.

"We're camping here tonight. Until he's figured out medically." John Danziger said to all. He called in Zero from patrol to return to base to guard camp.


	4. Chapter 4

John Danziger, narrating... "It's now clear that we're not going to be able to go any farther to find the edge of our human caused extinction zone that we're in. Julia says that Uly's central nervous system is continuing to degrade without an obvious, detectable cause. Heller has told me privately that the boy will have to be put on manual life support in a few days if his condition continues to worsen at its current rate. I'm at a loss on what I can do to help the situation. The rest of the group feels the same way. Our morale is at an all time low. Time to stick with a solid plan. That is, if we can figure out one."

The mechanic/new group leader of Eden Project eyed up the tents blossoming across the pinkish desert steppe and grimaced as he inhaled the melon pepper smell of disintegrating, dead vegetation rising on the wind. A scuff of shoes on rocks alerted him sharply, and he just barely lowered his Mag Pro gun away from a hostile aim in time to prevent an accident. He made out Morgan Martin's silhouette joining him on the sentry hill in the early morning darkness as the first copper rays of sunlight began to fill the sea green sky. John stopped a sudden urge to audibly give voice to his current thoughts about the Project's current fate.

Martin sighed an exhausted greeting and made his way over to a half finished dug-in-the-ground latrine pit. Morgan wasn't so inclined to be heroically stoic. The long haired, pony tailed business executive type spat out some sour sand that had been blown into his mouth by the stiff breeze as he, too, unzipped his settler's pants to pee into its depths. "Everything here's always about death and decay in the end. I hate this planet, John."

John smiled wryly. "Careful, Martin. This one has ears. Should we be biting the incredibly ugly land that still surrounds us?" he joked sarcastically.

The chistled man's expression hardened its Grecian lines."We've been living off that Earth made food synth hydrolyzer we recovered off of Bennet's ship almost 100%, Danziger. Who's mooching off who?"

Danziger shrugged, being honest. "All of the water we've been drinking and peeing back into ground holes since Day One is entirely G889's I'll have you know."

Martin rolled his eyes. "Oh, and the air's been a total gift, too, as of late? I've coughed out more dirt in the last three days than I've picked out from under my fingernails from digging toilet holes every night. Pretty pointless if you ask me. Nothing can eat us or our sh*t. We're the wrong type."

John let out a smile as he stared at the dead forest stretched out below them. "Use your face mask. Like the rest of us." Danziger said, finishing up relieving himself. "Then maybe you won't have to go to Julia for any more sonic pulmonary cleansings."

"I like those sessions." Morgan admitted. "I win instant sympathy and the attention I'm entitled to from Bess, whenever I go."

"She's your wife, not your mother hen." said a new, much younger voice. Both men readjusted their clothing quickly and repositioned their bathroom hands safely onto neutral hips as True Danziger walked into view. She immediately dropped her own pants down to the buff and squatted over the pit.

John and Morgan whirled their backs to her with exaggerated discomforture, averting their eyes. "Modesty, half pint! We have discussed this." John growled at his daughter.

"Never mattered when I was a baby." she shot back. "Dad, could you hand me a scrap? I forgot to bring some." True said, holding out her hand and wriggling fingers.

Blindly, John reached into his pocket for one and stretched out an arm to give it to her without looking. "Well, remember better next time. Better yet, why don't you void by yourself when nobody else is around? Might spare us some awkward moments like this one."

True completed her dump, deftly wiped herself, and pulled up her cargo trousers with a short hop. "You told me to stay in everybody's visual because we're on high alert. Make up your ship addled mind." she said. "Why do we have to build toilets anyway? I thought there's no alien bacteria anywhere on the planet to even be able to get us sick."

"Are you done yet?" Danziger huffed.

"I sure am." she snapped, matching their hands and hips poses.

John and Morgan both turned back around and eyed up True. Danziger crouched and took his daughter by the shoulders, as he knelt at her feet. "We have enough germs of our own inside our bodies to still cause issues to ourselves if we're not careful. It's bad enough that the phage Bennet engineered is killing off all the natives."

"Oh, I get it now, Dad. We don't want to add another epidemic on top of an already really, really bad one." she sighed.

Her father nodded tiredly.

"How's Uly doing?" Morgan asked True, changing the subject while shouldering the Mag Pro he took from John.

"The same. Still blind as a bat. Why didn't he say anything about his eyes? The idiot!" she groused with only half concealed worry. "He was starting to gasp a little when I left." she shared. "Like it was hard to breathe."

Morgan and John traded subtle glances at the girl's report of a prognosis they already knew was terrible.

"We still have his immunity suit as a back up, True." Morgan replied.

True made a face. "He hates that thing! He was so much happier running around camp at top speed using his own two feet!"

"Shush. He might hear you. It's up to all of us to keep Uly's spirits up. Let's grab dinner, Half Me. I want to talk to everybody before we eat." John said.

Uly was twitching in his sleep, under the influence of a sedation program through his virtual gear headset. The med tent had been assembled three sided, so the open side could face a camp fire for warmth and have access to plenty of fresh air.

It still felt weird to Bess Martin, even after a year marooned on G889, that a bug screen would never, ever be needed. The only thing that seemed familiar was the fullness of one of the planet's larger twin moons. The shadow of the second had been drifting nearer to the edge of its shining companion noticeably, every night. ::Moon cross.:: a part of Bess realized. ::It's nearing that time again?:: she wondered.

John Danziger and the rest of Eden Project were gathered around Devon Adair who was dishing out a fruit stew from a pot placed inside of the hydrolizer Danziger had bolted to the back of one of the Trans rovers. Its solar energy fully restored, meals were swiftly programmed to order and passed around to the group who sat around the fire. All there was left to do for breakfast was to wait for the nutri-java pot to finish heating over the green flames.

Julia kept one eye on the medical monitor screen she had turned on over Uly's head. She rested a cheek on Alonzo Solace's shoulder as she tried to relax her vigil over her patient.

"Julia, he's not bad yet." said Solace realistically. "And even if Uly's heart stopped, I doubt he'd be allowed to get away with it. Isn't he a Terrian prince or something now? What kind of royalty would he be to his Dreamers who saved him once before, if he suddenly died?"

Some of the stress on John Danziger's face fell away at that, as he built up their cooking fire. "He's got a point, Heller. That's one hell of a life support team waiting in the wings."

Devon Adair wasn't so reassured. "Uly's getting worse. Just like he did when we first landed here."

John Danziger nodded reluctantly. "And.. it's been proven that anything the Terrians choose to do for him is going to take more than a little while to happen."

"If at all." Julia agreed, stretching her medi-glove over Uly's pale chest one more time to take a reading of the boy's vital signs. "Nobody's seen or dreamed of a Terrian for a month."

"Maybe all we have to do is reach the edge of the extinction zone to re-establish contact with them." suggested Bess Martin. "We could send out a scouting party."

John Danziger shook his head. "It's never gone well for us whenever we've split up. I think we should stay together as a group. Let's not repeat past mistakes."

Morgan gestured, agreeing. "Yep. Separating would be stupid. Who knows how far this extinction zone really extends. It could be covering this whole continent by now. Any scout vehicle could potentially move out of the main group's head gear range, run headlong into danger, and we'd never even know about it."

Yale, the cyborg tutor was frank. "We'll never know unless we try that idea first. Just think of the consequences if we don't." he warned.

An uncomfortable silence reigned as everybody ate their steamed fruit and sipped their nutri-java.

Bess Martin picked up the plate of yellow eye stalks that Uly had refused to eat a while ago and dumped them gently onto the ground next to the fire. The stalks re-animated softly with a lemon glow and sank their roots back into the sand, returning to their original upright growing plant and motion detector state. Bess knew they'd offer themselves up as food for anyone who needed nourishment or medical care again willingly. "The ultimate recycler weed." she murmured with a half smile, tickling their feathery fronds in admiration. "You would have been very welcome on the farm back on Earth my fine fern-y friends." she chuckled. They turned their mono eye bulbs to study her face in detail as a reaction to the stimulus and subsequent replanting. Once assured of Bess's lack of hunger, the Terrian eye stalks reverted their attention towards Uly's nearby sick bed and remained firmly oriented to the boy's position as soon as her hand broke contact.

Cameron was smoothing down the hairs on his arms as he shivered. "I don't think I'll ever get used to those things." he said.

"Why not? They're very good for us." wondered Mrs. Martin.

Magus agreed, shaking back her short, dark hair. "Cameron, the eye stalks were made that way by a clan of Terrians who must still hold a lot of compassion for human beings in spite of everything we've done to them."

"I know. I realize that. I... It's just that they're so... alien." said the big man, still creeped out.

"Wait a minute." True spoke up, pointing to the yellow eyestalks' gentle surveillance of the boy's still face. "They're watching Uly. And us. Right? Who's on the receiving end of that?"

"Welcome to my world." said Zero suddenly. The android had been standing at attention, on passive patrol scan, near the edge of the group. Everybody startled. The voice that had spoken had not been the gentle male tenor they had all come to know as the Zero's normal vocal modulator. The voice, speaking in a much higher tone, was pitched easily into the range of being... female.


	5. Chapter 5

Quicker than it could be said out loud, John Danziger shot the gun out of Zero's grip with his MagPro. He kept its crosshairs aimed at the android's head unit squarely. "Whoever you are! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't blow off your other hand!" He tried to ignore the frightened cries of his daughter as she hastily scrambled for cover.

"Don't move a millimeter!" added Yale, pulling a frightened True behind himself protectively. He had no gun, but he framed his cyber hand into a shield over his vital throat and chest areas.

Devon Adair stood, flanked by Magus and Cameron's line of fire. She locked eyes with Zero's sensors and spat out a deep command code. "Zero! Specify Alpha Primary Directives. Override current program. List them! Mark!"

The android lifted up a destroyed stump of a wrist and peered curiously at the end of his arm as it sparked and smoked. The voice that came out was entirely his old one. "First Law: Thou shall not harm humans. Second Law: Thous shall not commit any act that shall indirectly cause mankind harm. Third Law: Thou shall not take any action that conflicts with the first two laws."

"Stop." Adair barked. "Zero: Analyze your cerebral matrix, we heard a vocal anomaly that was definitely independent of your normal functioning."

"I detect no aberrations. However, my right distal limb has been severely damaged." the android reported in his usual sacchrine sweet tenor. The sound of it almost made True sick with its unspoken lie.

Suddenly, Zero rocked back on his heels and angled his head and carapace backwards and beyond the vertical, until the glow of the intersecting moons lit up his visiplate."Interesting." came the female voice, returning. She spoke through Zero's speaker grills again, still holding the android's bizarre back bending, rag doll pose."This not-life is uncorruptively passive and cannot ever kill its makers."

"That's not Eve." warned Yale. "If it was, I'd feel it." he hissed.

Devon nodded tightly, still keeping very still before the altered service machine. "Will you?" she asked the new presence inside the android.

"I... cannot." said the soft voice. "It is not allowed, even if we die first."

"She's a Terrian!" stage whispered Morgan Martin. "And there's no damned power staff anywhere near here."

Everyone relaxed visibly. The fright was almost too much for Danziger's nerves. His gun arm started shivering with the strain. Alonzo reached up and helped him hold the muzzle steady.

"Where are you?" asked True, peeking around Yale's broad body. "Why can't we see you?"

Zero did not move but there was a shift of visual attention in the android from everybody, to just the girl, that was palpable. "I am on the third world. For only tonight, am I now touching." and she pointed to the glowing white moon being eclipsed by the dark red, smaller moon.

"Why are you here speaking to us with a voice?" Bess asked. "Why aren't you dreaming to us?"

Devon waved her silent and redirected another question to Zero. "Are you the Mother Uly tells us exists on this planet?"

"I am not. I am a Balancer. I convey any life who wishes to leave this world, for the next. Where they go, can be of their choosing. To the other two. Just one, or including my own."

"They can space travel to the moons?!" True blurted out, excited.

"The launching place must be through Mary's Moon Pool." surmised Cameron.

"Maybe Mary's cave is another kind of conduit, like the tunnel spiders' web tubes were, to that other sea that we encountered last summer." theorized Devon. "Well, it fits in concept any way."

John sighed in relief, picking up her idea. "She's a monitor, not a soldier or a defender." He lowered his gun to the ground and motioned the others to do the same. "I get it now."

The female voice continued. "Yes. Too many are now leaving this world. Some for forever. Those are... Lost. The rest can go into the moon unguent, to journey. And your life group, I see, is at the heart of all of the Lost's moments of choosing, whether to stay and struggle, or to end."

Yale defended Eden Project. "We didn't cause all of this death!"

"Not directly." Devon amended. "The ones who caused the unnatural dying to start, are dead themselves, many seasons ago."

"Clan tied are immutable, once decided." said female sounding android's voice.

True got mad. "Mary's wasn't! We had to save her from others of your kind more than once!"

"Shush, True." warned John. "We don't know who we're dealing with. Not yet."

"Hmm.." said the feminine speaker. "Your tiny female is not one of the Three. No part of us lives in her."

"She's talking about Terrian genes, Devon." whispered Julia to Adair in discovery. "We have those in our blood, Uly, Mary and I. Make her see that connection. She might help save your son from whatever it is that's k-"

Adair felt a stab of desperation. "I know." Her eyes teared up. "You've been watching Uly,... h-haven't you?" she pleaded to the stranger inside of Zero's familiar lines.

"Yes." said their visitor warmly. "He is new clan. Very strong, for an other life. Sands chose well." praised the soprano voice.

::That must be the name of Mary's clan. The same one who saved my son from that congenital wasting disease, Station's Syndrome.:: thought Devon Adair. "I am grateful he was chosen. I-it took me a while to understand why he was picked to be a bridge between us."

"He is still tied, alien mother. But our fate is his fate."

"If you're not the cause of why he's dying. Then please, tell me what's wrong with him."

"He feels the Lost." the Balancer said. "He wants to follow them."

A thrill of horror shot through the whole Eden Project population.

Morgan's voice shrieked as he freaked out, giving into his borderline manic side. "No one can feel Death! No one alive. That's an abomination. Take that back!"

Devon got scared. "You promised me a year ago, that this wouldn't happen. He's Other! Please,then. Let him go! Untie your connection. He's done nothing to you. It's not for him to die, Balancer." she sobbed. "We've seen your future. He grows into a man! I've seen this.." she cried.

Zero's body suddenly uprighted and his visual sensors pricked forward to face Devon exactly at her face level, crouched kneed in order to accomplish that. Overwhelming curiosity dripped off of the Balancer's next words. "Y-You can see our dreams?" the high voice whispered in amazement.

"Yes!" answered Alonzo. "Like you can see ours. You first saw mine after I broke my leg and couldn't sleep at night. Didn't you know that?"

"I did not. The worlds' passing touch is short. Only six times, since I began, have I been back on the world of the Mother's." she replied. "I stay, for each time, three of your hours. All I know is that we need him. We will not let him go."

Bess did not lose sight of their goal in first contact. "Uly. He's not well, Balancer. He is not normal for one of us. If he cannot separate, what can we do to make him strong for you again?"

Nearby, Julia nodded in agreement and encouragement for that kind of approach. Devon was just as certain of the choice of words. Truly, they were negotiating for their very survival.

"Save our lives." came the succinct and simple reply.


	6. Chapter 6

Cameron turned to Magus where they stood partially behind the land rover. "What's the matter with that guy?" the burly Australian Cargo whispered about Morgan.

Magus just rolled her eyes. "You mean he's been with us for over a year and you haven't figured it out yet? Our pet station suit is a hypochondriac and the D-Word is his trigger phrase. He can't even eat his food without getting nauseated over the idea that it's no longer living AND not from Earth. You should see the lengths Bess goes through to hide its unnatural origins."

The Aussie Cargo snarled in a hiss. "He's never been fit to be one of us. How the h*ll did he ever get on board our ship?"

Magus shushed him with a gesture, mindful of the others a short distance away, ringing Zero. "He's married to our planetary surface agricultural specialist, remember? She's indispensable."

Cameron's glare at Morgan did not lessen, until Magus drew him away to a farther position from which to guard the group.

Next to John, Yale listened intently to the Terrian called the Balancer who was transmitting her voice through Zero. "Uly hears the Lost? Do you mean the dead? Or are you speaking of those who want to be." the cybertutor said gently, mindful of Uly's shivering and over stressed mother who was standing by his side.

"Those who are becoming Lost and who will be no more." said Balancer.

Devon leaped on that thought, quietly horrified. "Are you saying that my son is suicidal?!"

Balancer angled Zero's head backwards in puzzlement, but did not reply.

John bit his lip and sent out a helpless look towards Adair, but he found he couldn't deny her realization. It had been obvious to everyone else. He finally kept his own council as he met eyes with his daughter True in agreement about not making Devon's horrible discovery worse.

Julia came out of the med tent at her heart rending outburst. She moved over to Adair and held her supportively as the truth depth of Uly's sudden decline sank in to his mother.

Bess responded to her intuitively. "Devon, it may not be true. Terrians don't kill. So how can they understand the concept of killing themselves or even recognize that state in others? A word for it doesn't even exist."

"She's right." said Julia. "All of the ones we've ever seen in jeopardy in our experience, just bellied up and suffered whatever it was that was afflicting or injuring them. Remember when Mother-By-Choice's clan members were shot by the ZED and came to us to get the worm bullets out? They were totally helpless to help themselves because they did not comprehend that another lifeform had intentionally harmed them physically. Even the Grendlers took a long time to learn how to kill from Gaal. The Balancer may just be sensing depression, which in a way is a lack of interest in life; a kind of death."

"The Lost stop." echoed Balancer using Zero's body. "They do not return."

Spooked, Adair, barely pulling herself together, had had enough of the Balancer's benevolent alienness. "Everybody, l- John... I'm not Eden Project's leader any more. You are. I just want to stay with my son. I can't think straight. So it's probably best that I'm with Ulysses from here on out until whatever else happens runs its course. You handle our...our guest. I'm through." she said, turning her Mag Pro over to Baines.

"Adair.." John began. "I-"

But Bess and Julia both subtly shook their heads at him.

Danziger watched Devon begin to rush off to Uly's cotside.

Bess pursued and stopped her, spouting supportiveness. "Devon, it's only natural that Uly's depressed about our situation. The idea of extinction is not an easy concept for children. But he's never been a quitter. I, and the others, know that at times, he may think black thoughts, but he isn't one to act on them."

"He did accelerate fetal-birthing my horse." whispered True from her father's side. "Pegasus would have been fine if he hadn't of done what he did!"

"Shut your mouth, True.." warned John.

Adair glared at John's daughter. "He was sick then!"

True told it like it was, without an ounce of sting, braving her father's wrathful eyes. "Yes. And he's sick now." she said significantly to all adults listening. "Who knows what he might do? Certainly not our new disembodied friend over there."

Devon gulped air, stopping her tirade at True as she spiraled out of control. "I'm sorry, True. You're right. My son's scared, a-and probably feeling a million things we can't even imagine." she sobbed. "Now, please, Bess... I have to be there for him.." she sniffed, frightened.

Bess Martin let go of her arm, but not before she patted Adair's shoulder briefly in support.

The Balancer reached out timidly, as Devon rushed by, with an empathetic upturned palm, trying to Terrian coo a soothing warble through Zero's voice modulator, but what emerged rasped harsh and sharp, like a Tesla coil going sour.

The possessed android's awkward attempt at sympathy was not lost on the others. The Balancer was proving herself to be very empathetic. Yale guessed that it was probably a necessary trait for her to have in her unique solo role in Terrian society.

John Danziger shifted, discomforted, on his feet, and sighed wearily. "Julia, perhaps you'd better go back with her to help keep an eye on Uly or none of us are going to get any sleep tonight with her fussing over him."

Heller nodded, giving Zero/Balancer a wide berth.

Zero remained silent, as the Balancer held herself very still under the weak glow of the red eclipsing moons' shadow. "All of Sands are ill. They will end on this world before the next moon cross if the Lost continue to multiply. Will you help preserve what still is?"

Danziger and the group all looked at each other, and then down at their powerful, energy humming weapons of destruction which they all held. They immediately regretted their earlier reactions of paranoia and fear.

Even Morgan hid his Mag Pro behind his back self consciously.

John nodded in affirmation to Balancer. "Our species is flawed, Balancer. And violent. You'll probably encounter some dreams of ours on that. But now, it's more than d*mned well time for us to show you what the word human in humanitarian actually means."

Yale held out his cybernetic hand to Zero's. "Let's learn how to survive together, Balancer. All right?" Carefully, the tutor showed the remote Terrian what an Earth handshake was. "This means I am no longer carrying a weapon and I welcome you."

Zero's visual sensors flashed comprehension.


	7. Chapter 7

Only six of the Eden Project colonists stayed on sentry duty on the overlook to keep an eye out for roaming ZEDs. Still, the baleful eye of the double moon lunar eclipse filled the sky, soaking the silent landscape surrounding them in uncharacteristic rusty red half light.

Morgan Martin sat with his back to their space ship pilfered solar powered food hydrolizer and just helplessly watched as another scary event unfolded even further out in front of him. He knew the boy was dying. That was obvious. He didn't want to admit it to any of the others, but stressful situations always made him hungry. "That's just the opposite of what happens to everybody else." he mumbled to himself unhappily as he checked the charge on his armed Mag-pro for what seemed like the five hundredth time that day automatically. His stomach lashed out at him in an audible spastic growl. Restlessly, he yanked up a handful of yellow eye stalks that were watching him dutifully at the edge of the tent's door and started eating them, eyes first. "Yum." he groused sarcastically. "Nothing like chewing up a few fresh G889 mobile fries." Morgan attempted to mask their flavor with a few shakes of Earth salt from his private cylinder stash, but it didn't work and he gagged anyway as he swallowed each bite.

The rest of the group had reconvened in the med tent. Their nervousness had been greatly eased by the Balancer's overtures of friendship and her offer of social bonding, but not completely. Devon asked the one question everybody else was avoiding. "Balancer, why do you need to speak to us through this machine?" she asked, tapping one of Zero's limp arms where he stood next to her at the head of Uly's bed.

"It is not yet the time of the Crawlers. They awaken when the star that warms this world touches their glossomer lattice's heart. It is through these places that I find the Three, our home destinations." replied the absent Terrian.

Johnathon startled and his mouth flopped wide open. "D-Do you mean the radioactive spiders? The ones that join far places together inside of caves?"

Beside him, Devon became equally excited. "John! Maybe that's a faster way for us to travel to the edge of the Phage zone. Balancer, do you know if we can get to any of these tesserect locations? W- We know how to use them, and if we can again, we will be in a better position to help all of you." she gasped excitedly.

The Balancer tilted Zero's head. "Tesserect?"

Julia sighed at the scientific term. It was an Earth concept, one that might prove to be difficult to explain to an alien. But then the mind of a child solved the problem.

True demonstrated with a string between her fingers, first stretched out arms wide. Then she brought her finger tips together in a tap, folding the length of the string up until there was no distance along its length. "A point that folds up and shortens a longer journey between doorways."

Balancer raised one of Zero's arms in a leaping gesture. "Transitting... A Moon Cross?"

"Yes!" shouted Yale, the cyborg tutor. "Those. Yours must be the same thing. Why haven't we noticed this before like with Mary's Moon Cross?"

True looked at the teacher wryly. "Those pools were filled with acid. As far as we knew, those Terrians were walking down to their deaths." she remembered.

"The pool does not kill as mist. Only when it becomes heavy and flows." replied Balancer.

"Like in all the lakes and rivers." Julia surmised. She leaned over the bed and set the medi-arm's palm and fingers over Uly's chest to monitor his weak breathing.

Zero/Balancer nodded their head module. "The sky star pushes the ground fog mists into a sinking layer that is richer in presence."

"It goes liquid in sunlight?" Bess asked. "That would explain why our rainfalls are water and not acid." she said happily. "I've always wondered how that could be."

"It jives. We always seem to only see that odd yellow mist inside of caves." Danziger agreed. "Especially in Mary's Moon Pool."

"When it floats, it is both Arrival and Departure for our clans." the Terrian shared.

The babble in the tent increased as people threw out sudden ideas and their thoughts and fears.

Morgan then stated the obvious and made his voice louder over the noise. "Whoa, whoa whoa..guys. Think a little bigger huh? The big mission's off, right? We're not stuck with meeting up with anybody in New Pacifica any more. Because we're too weak on resources. This world's dying. We need food, right? And it's disappearing on us as fast as we can run. Why don't we go to one of the Moons instead, to Balancer, and use it as a emergency refuge? Going to one of those natural satellites might buy us time until we can solve the issue here."

A stunned silence covered the group.

Balancer filled it. "You are not Terrian. No other origin life is able to choose to step onto another home place."

Devon was persistent. "We are not origin life. We're not from G889. We're from Earth. And we are people, like Terrians. Will you let us try? Will you take us through Moon Cross?"

The Balancer was about to answer when a warble alert snapped into active.  
A sudden shout peeled over the head gear network all the humans wore. **ZEDs!** came Cameron's frantic shout. **One of the d mn things are near by. Nearly shot my head off with a worm bullet! It hit a tree behind us!**

John, Devon, Yale, Alonzo and Bess all flicked into the gear realm once their magpros were shouldered with carrying straps and charged.

The inky black void of emergency sensor mode surrounded them. A 3D positional map was already played out before their eyes showing where Cameron was, and where a new menacing green light pointed, stationary bogie stood on a nearby sandy mountain ridge.

**Are you hurt?** Devon spoke over VR.

**No, should I come to camp? It already knows where we are!** Cameron answered.

**Hurry back. We'll fortify up and go hunt it down using our smaller sized people. There might be more out there!** Danziger warned.

**God forbid.** murmured Cameron. **There in one!**

Devon flipped back into the real world and faced the visiting remote Terrian. "Balancer, we need our machine, Zero, back. Our lives are in danger. Let us use him again."

"The interrogators come?" said Balancer.

"Yes. We call them ZEDs. They're shooting at us with their capture weapons. We need to defend ourselves!" Adair told her.

"I will go."

"Can you return before the three hours of this total eclipse are up?" Devon asked her.

There came a crashing sound as the six sentries stumbled into the tent, aiming their magpros behind them, covering their tracks and the way they had come.

"Yes. I will return before the end." And just like that, the rag doll pose on Zero clicked off. The sentry robot's voice module warped in. "Warning. One biped detected. Two deployed incendiaries are in final countdown." Zero's protection program reported.

"Two? There must be more than one of these guys for sure then. It takes s ZED ten minutes for it to reload and fire another wormie. That's what I figured out the last time we were attacked." Cameron huffed, out of breath from his desperate bolt into cover.

"Where are those landed bullets?!" roared John. "Zero, give me the coordinates through VR."

"Here." shared Zero. "They are both inside indigenous plant life cores."

"Julia!" Devon shouted.

"I'm on it. I'll get them out and throw them over the sand dune cliff into the lake. Who's with me?" Julia asked, snatching up her surgical bag which contained drills and forceps probing tools. Perfect for digging worm bullets out of tree wood.

"I'll go." said Bess volunteered.

"No, Bess!" begged Morgan. "It's too dangerous out there to bomb defuse!"

"It's more dangerous for you. I'm one of the small folks, Morgan. See? Even True's arming up. She'll be the last of us targetted if it comes to that. Stay here and guard Uly. Of all of us, he's the most important. If we lose him, we'll lose this world for anybody who survives this attack. You heard it from Balancer."

Morgan minced and felt his gorge rise even higher in a nauseating wave. "Okay, just... be careful, Bess."

"I always am." Bess said, kissing him fiercely.

"The rest of you. Let's confront directly. No hiding today." Danziger ordered. The Eden Project group fanned out, on a mission to save themselves from an encounter with the planet's worst version of instant Hell.

Devon ran out of the med tent with John and Alonzo close behind her. She was close to panicking. "We need a cave. Better concealment in a cave. We can seal it off.." she sobbed, worried for her son. She flung her back against the food hydrolizer and flipped on her VR's eye piece as a lifesign detector.

"We're nowhere near those kinds of rocks." Danziger told her. "They're at least fifteen clicks away by landrover."

"Then where are they shooting from?!" Adair demanded, highly frightened.

"Up there." Alonzo pointed, confirming his green dot tracing that Zero had given them. "They're in the trees."

"And we're in a dead forest full of them." Danziger grunted. "Terrific. This is bad."

"This is really bad." Alonzo retorted. "We need a game plan. A...a...a distraction!"

Johnathon gestured to True. He could see her belly crawling underneath a land rover to get closer to them. The Magpro she dragged behind her was bigger than she was.  
"Think that Kitty chasing the snack trick will work a second time?" he asked her.

"Kitty's only got six claws to flick." True shared. "And we're out of food bars, Dad. I haven't figured out what else he likes and might go after. I haven't had time yet."

"We'll think of something else." Solace said grimly. "We always do."

"Zero!" Johnathon shouted.

"Sir?" came the robot's reply.

"Do you know how to use Uly's Terrian staff yet?" the mechanic asked.

"I think so, sir. I've been analyzing my observed parameters on it since-"

"Pick it up and use it as soon as possible. Get as close to any ZED as you can. Don't let them shoot out your eye sensors!"

"I will endeavor to do my best, sir."

Suddenly, there came a whistling hiss in the distance, growing louder by the second. A worm bullet in flight.

"Everybody down!" Alonzo warned, frantically searching VR's air grid and the sky beyond that for any sign of a directional.

Pfffttt! came the sound of impact. True screamed as a gush of blood suddenly spurted out of her side. She collapsed. "They hit me! They hit me, Dad!"

Johnathon lunged forward and grabbed his daughter by the legs. He flung her up over a shoulder, then stood up and yanked open the door of the land rover and dragged the door shut behind them into an awkward huddle. He snatched down a medkit from a back wall and fumbled with the catches. "Hang on, True. How bad is it? Talk to me.." he sobbed.

" Idunknowwhhh...A-are we safe?" she drowsed, dazed.

"They can't get us in here. Bullet proof glass, hon." he promised, stroking her face to keep her awake.

She puffed through her mouth, panting laborously. "They're not supposed to go after tiny. I'm tinier than- AhhhhHH!" she gasped as her father ripped open her shirt to get to the fresh wound beneath. "Did it go in? Oh, G*d don't let it be burrowing in." the little girl writhed.

Johnathon pulled the ugly tears of skin flaps apart. He celebrated with a cry of relief. "It missed.. I think it missed, Half Pint..." Danziger grunted, breathing fast as he closed up the hideous bloody holes with his fingers and patched over it with dermaflex. "There are two holes here. It went in and past. Just grazed your rib cage." He reached for his daughter's carotid pulse to see where it sat for rate. Her face was pale and sweaty, but not yet blue.

"Got to find the bullet, Dad." she hissed in pain, her eyes closed. "We could still blow up."

In sudden panic, Danziger waved the others out of the way and fired up the land rover, lurching its controls to full forward. The cab lumbered jerkily straight ahead and away from the clump of ashy dead trees behind it.

Seconds later, a small blossom of the incendiary inside of the worm bullet exploded, blasting apart the foilage that had stopped it after it passed through True's body. Three tree husks suddenly vaporized. What was left of the debris and fire spread out and dissipated harmlessly.

Danziger got on his head gear as True fainted in shock in his arms. He tilted her head back so she could continue to breathe on her back. **Julia, True took a torso hit.**

**What?! I'm coming back.**

**No, don't. She's fine. It didn't penetrate past the chest wall. Disarming those two wild shot WB's have priority. They might be near the med tent!**

**I see where you both are. Keep an eye out for lung contusions if she's unconscious. Force of impact might have damaged inside aveoli tissue anyway. Keep her breathing until I get there. We've just found the first one in Cameron's tree trunk.** Heller snapped. She and Bess were contorted in a huddle of branches, quickly working up to reach the bore hole where they could hear the bullet chewing.

**Watch out! Their timers seem to be set to random detonation times. Ours blew in a minute and a half.** Danziger changed tactics. **Zero! They're not sizing any more. Defend everybody equally. It's the best option!**

**Understood, sir.** replied the robot and the ripple from the others as they acknowledged the horrific discovery.

Inside of the medical tent, Morgan was hiding beneath Uly's cot. He had one of Uly's hands dangling down and he was holding it so tightly, its fingers were turning white. "Wake up you stupid kid. We need your dreamscaping pronto! ZEDs are coming! I sure hope you can hear me in there!" Martin shouted, scared beyond terror.

Somewhere far away, and somewhere very deep, a mental light glimmered into being inside of Uly's head. 


	8. Chapter 8

Uly stirred in his med tent cot weakly. ::Who?:: he mind spoke to the presence he could feel. He knew the touch was Terrian and it was like water to the dying desert of his soul.

##Dirt Runner.## the Balancer dream closer at him.

::What's wrong with me?:: the curly haired boy wept into their growing bond.

##The Mother cries. When She does, the clans lose voice and breath. You are clan.##

Uly coughed, fighting the oxygen feed hissing in his nose. He pulled it away from his face and ignored the alarm which began to sound the change in his vital signs.

::She mourns the small life?:: Adair asked the Balancer.

##Yes.##

::What can I do for Her?:: Uly quailed, lost in the very roots of terror.

##Don't end.##

Julia Heller screamed like a banshee as she and Bess Martin hurled the last worm bullets over the cliff and into the acid lake below. They both flung themselves onto their stomachs and hastily covered their heads with their arms and hands as the incendiary exploded under its caustic surface. Both yelped as a few drops of liquid rained from the resulting mushroom plume fell down and burned them with tiny needles of chemical fire.

"Okay! Okay! It's over.." Martin gasped.

Julia staggered to her feet. "Let's get back to True and the others."

They fled on rubber legs towards the direction of camp.

"Where do we hide?!" Morgan Martin panicked from his spot underneath the camp picnic table.

John Danzinger kicked open the door to the Transrover with his unconscious daughter propped up against his shoulder on top of an arm. "For you? In here!" as he leaped out the vehicle's control cab. "Me? I'm taking True to the med tent where all the gear is!"

"But!"

"Shut up and move or I'll lock you out of it and hide my comm code key!"

Morgan whimpered and leaped past the burly blond haired mechanic gratefully.

On his way past, Danziger snatched Martin's Magpro from the brown ponytailed executive's grip. "Mine! There's no need for shooting yours off in a bullet proof vehicle cab." he said, heartsick with barely controlled worry for True.

"How's she doing?" said Yale, slamming the rover's door on Morgan's heels as soon as the cowardly man was inside and safe.

"Breathing! Work on her hemorrhaging on the move!" John shouted. "It's not penetrated any deeper than skin."

The cyborg tutor grabbed her legs to help carry the wounded girl a little faster out of the open space in the middle of camp. His robotic hand magnetically sealed over the ragged holes on the side of True's chest with a telegraphed thought. "Got it!"

"Oh my God! They're targetting children!" hissed Bess. "Why?!" as she wormed her way through dead brambles and thorn hedges for cover.

Julia was hurrying, just as panicked as Martin. "What I want to know more than that is... Is it over? ZEDs are psychopathic, but they're rigidly logical. They seem to be limited to the parameters of their programming without deviating." she panted, pushing herself to her feet to dash in a crouch through an open clearing.

"Who the h*ll rewrote their software, then?" Bess snarled.

Heller wasn't out of breath from sprinting in the slightest, but she was at a complete loss for words as a reply to that scary thought.

They were all in an unknown cave when night fell. They had a double thickness ring of vehicles crowded around the entrance to prevent pot shots from any ZED snipers.

"How is she?" Danziger demanded the second he saw Julia enter the circle of green firelight.

"She's sleeping." Heller replied reluctantly.

John was relentless at the chink showing up in her evasiveness.

"Did my girl need surgery? Be straight with me, Heller." the burly man barked.

"No, of course not. You saw what she had, John. I only had to put in a few sti-" Julia broke off, biting her lip at her admission.

Danziger fumed. "Did you just say stitches?!"

The conversation around the fire paused at his outburst.

"My baby's been sewn up with dead animal intestines?" he asked again.

Julia square off at all of the stares their supposedly private consultation was garnering. "Well, er... Yes." Julia met his eyes finally, without flinching. "It saved power on the mediglove's cauterizer since the sun's already gone down. Who knows who else might get themselves shot tonight before dawn."

John blinked. Twice. Then his mouth finally opened up. "She's going to think they're totally awesome when she wakes up!" He grabbed Julia's face in his huge hands and kissed her on top of her head loudly. "Thanks." he grinned. "Those are far better than the tattoo I won't let her have." He left the doctor for True's cot nestled at the back of the cave in the darkness.

Heller got up to pour herself some more eyestalk tea and was surprised at how shaky her legs were reacting in relief.

Cameron, Yale, Devon, Alonzo and Magus were at it big over the food tarp. Disagreement on what they should do about the encroaching ZED band, raged.

"We're not safe here!" Morgan simpered.

"We're not safe anywhere!" Devon countered.

"We haven't been safe since we landed." said Magus, her mop of sandy hair sending out curls of dust as she snapped her head in anger.

Alonzo escalated the point. "We've always been surrounded by aliens, Grendlers, Terrians, kobas.."

"Not any more..." came a quiet, cold fact from Yale.

The raw truth of their current circumstances shamed the others into silence. Even though the pandemic spread of the Phage wasn't any of Eden Project II's fault, association guilt was biting deep in most of the crash landers.

All except one. "That onus belongs entirely to E.P. I's dead crew." Morgan Martin said vehemently.

"Does it?" Yale challenged. "Remember, we as humans are the invaders here."

Devon hung her head, accepting the lesson being taught. "We are a virus species that unleashed a bacterium, however indirectly into the ecology..."

"..and soul..." rumbled Yale. "They are connected."

Adair swallowed drily. She had never counted on a Gaia theory that included a planetary intelligence that was self aware through its bipeds. "...of G889. If we're not careful and undo what they did, we'll be killed ourselves for losing what little native resources we have."

Alonzo threw up his hands. "So what are we supposed to do?" he asked sarcastically.

Devon met his eyes with a steely gaze. "If John were here with us and not in med vigil over True, I know he's say, 'We find an alternative that works like we always do.' "


	9. Chapter 9

"We still have time to come up with a solution." said Yale to the group. He noticed that everyone was still keyed up about the Z.E.D. attack.

"Yeah? How?" asked Cameron, irritated that they weren't absolutely safe, inside of the cave. He kept shifting his Magpro's aiming sight from one eye stalk clump to another, watching for any telltale turning that might give away a Z.E.D. on silent approach to their hiding space.

Yale raised his voice with a gesturing wait motion when his Eden Project family's babble rose to an angry buzz of frustration. "Remember what the Balancer is doing right now during Moon Cross. She said that she conveys her indigenous populations to the world of their choice through the moon pools."

Morgan Martin leaped to his feet from a fire warmed boulder. "Are you suggesting we just pack up and leave G889 for one of those two moons up there?!"

"No, that would be foolish. Our colonists are arriving at New Pacifica next spring. What I'm thinking is that someone else who's not so near and dear, does the leaving. The Z.E.D." Yale clarified.

Devon Adair startled at Yale's idea. But then immediately frowned. She set her eye stalk tea down between her boots. "Would we be in the right with dumping them off planet? We'd be inflicting soldiers, still hot for outdated intelligence about a long dead war, onto innocent lands."

Julia agreed. "That would be worse than what human action has already done with the Phage here. It would be just trading one plague for another one. Besides, we don't really know how many Z.E.D. are actually roaming around out there. Don't they run silent so Zero can't detect their presence? We may not be able to find, trick, and transfer all of them away before the eclipse is over."

Alonzo Solace sighed deeply with fatigue. "Back to square one. I was getting excited there for a moment about possibly being able to finally solve something on this rock ball for once."

Bess Martin's eyes were darting back and forth and she was uncharacteristically silent amid the brain storming flying around her. Her husband noticed, "Bess, what are you thinking and hiding from the rest of us? I know that look of private concentration. Your eyes give you away."

"Shut up, Morgan." she said defensively, suddenly ashamed of her idea.

John Danzinger just dropped his head and rolled his eyes mildly at Mrs. Martin. "Come on. It can't be worse than the mass genocide already in progress or the mass cyborg relocation we're not going to be orchestrating."

Bess finally got up from the tarp covered piece of equipment that she had been sitting on and pulled it off reluctantly.

Morgan Martin goggled at the revealed geolock in horror and shivered. "Oh, God, no. Not those things again."

Yale's mouth flopped open at the same time as Julia Heller's.

"Could it be that simple? We freeze and cut it out?" said their only doctor.

"Excisement, oh my." the tutor considered. "How long would the Phage bacterium have to be in stasis before it dies?"

"Not very d mned long." John Danziger chuckled. "Don't germs live out entire generations in just a few hours?"

"This one does." Julia grinned, nodding. "With the geolock, we can arrest all the mutations, too."

Devon Adair sat foward, growing disturbed and agitated as she wrapped her head around the whole concept. "Just how would the Mother react? We'd be killing what's left of the Terrian population."

"Not if we coordinate with The Balancer. She can rescue those in the plague area and take them to one of the other moons to keep them safe." Bess half smiled. Her hands still shook from the memory of the geolock's power, but Morgan took her chilled ones into his own warm grip and kissed them tenderly.

Her husband whispered, "If anyone can pull that one off, you can, Farm Girl." he giggled nervously. "This alien Earth loves you."

"And my son..." said Devon.

"...this Earth's human communicator." said Yale.

"What am I? A stuffed shirt?" said Alonzo, of his ability to talk to the Terrians in dream.

Magus smacked his arm to hush up their pilot, only half mock. "They don't trust you, Solace. You aren't open to them in the way they need."

John sucked in a big breath of air from where he had True cradled in his lap and blew it out again. "So what do we do once the entire extinction zone's frozen away from time?"

"We cut out the tumor." Julia said quickly.

That statement created a rush of babble again from everybody within earshot.

"What? A few thousand square miles of planetary crust plus fifty years' percolation deep, down to the bottom of all of its water tables?!" Morgan quailed. "Oh, the Mother's going to just love us performing that kind of human surgery."

"But it won't be by humans, Morgan. Don't you see?" Bess said, looking up with incredulous amazement. "Terrians are the perfect miners and excavators already. They can perform the operation. And then they can perform the terraforming that restores the land afterwards."

"Peeling off some of G889's layers like an onion's all well and good. But what about the Z.E.D.? Why have they started targetting our youngest people all of the sudden?" Yale stated.

Julia guessed. "Because our children are the smallest. This planet doesn't know what bacteria are. Remember? There aren't any, and never has been, in the history of its entire ecology. For all we know, the spores from the Pod Porter flowers are the tiniest lifeform that has ever lived here. And those are ginormous. About poppy seed size."

Devon glanced down at Uly. "Are you saying the planet's using our planet's Z.E.D. template idea, on their own kind, to be antibodies? Trying to kill off the new germs?"

"Well, yeah. It's just that they're... not very good at it. Not yet. Perhaps the whole idea of immunity's foreign to the Mother." shrugged Heller.

"It's a long way from a little girl's size to a plague cyst, Julia." John grumbled.

"I know. I know. But it makes sense though, I mean, why else did the original Z.E.D. go after us in the first place? We're totally foreign." the doctor reasoned, throwing out an obvious hand shrug.

"So are they. They're half cyborg." Danziger glared.

"But is their flesh part, human? I wonder.." Yale thought out loud.

"Well, what else could they be?" Morgan shifted uncomfortably.

The tutor opened up his holographic hand to an image of a dead Z.E.D.'s face, the one from the sleeper ship they had left behind. "Grendler? Hmmm. Possibly.. Terrian?"

"Aw, no way!" Cameron flared. "Then what people here made the robotic half then? Anything machine's totally a human invention."

"Is it?" Yale grinned. "We are not the only travelers in space. There are too many stars out there for us to be the only beings exploring the outer reaches. Perhaps Uly's Mother sentience is someone else's experiment or game, and the Terrians are the playing cards. Making tools was co-evolutionary on our Earth, so why not here? And so must machine building be, in turn. Whoever they are stole our Earth concept of war machine." he insisted.

"But these Z.E.D.s are cruel, too! Why are these new ones that way?" Bess insisted. "Those worm bullets are still torturing devices."

"Ah, but that's as seen through human eyes! How might it be through a biological perspective? Doctor?" the tutor encouraged.

Julia Heller's face brightened. "Breeding. A... sharing of information, before recombination."

"The worm bullets are sperm?" John blinked.

Heller threw up her hands. "We don't know how the Terrians reproduce themselves. Do they grow? Are they... made in a test tube? Or are they still babies, with all the Z.E.D. actually being their biological parents?"

"Are you saying they were trying to mate with my True?!" John roared.

"No, John." Julia flinched, then she started laughing. "But they did use the only delivery system they know about. Shooting. No, True's attack was definitely an attempt at trying to kill the Phage bacteria. Only they mistook the same species as the Phage makers, us, to be the germ itself. Your daughter is a closer step into the right direction to the Phage's actual size than any of us adults. I think the Z.E.D. are still learning how to be ...uh, for lack of a better word.. A disinfectant." Heller concluded, biting her lip.

Adair smirked. "Z.E.D. : Germ, you're dead?"

"Still alive..." groaned Uly.. "...and kicking." True, moaned.

Julia set her hands on both her patients' shoulders. "Welcome back to being awake, you two. I knew the cooler air in this cave would do the trick. Have you been listening to what we've been saying this whole time?"

"Yeah.." "...yeah.." said Uly and True.

Julia raised an eyebrow. "Tell me something then. Have you guys ever seen any predator and prey action on G889 since we arrived?"

Uly sighed, still half groggy. "You mean like somebody eating somebody else?"

"Uh huh.." Heller nodded. "Carnivores."

"No." True replied.

Uly contradicted her. "Just when John did."

"A cannibal?" True sucked in a gasp, wide eyed.

"Shhh..." Devon hissed at him. "Don't speak of it, Ulysses. Don't you ever.."

"I'm sorry, Dad." True whispered, closing her eyes which each let out a single tear of stress. "I didn't ...really.. let it sink in."

"It's okay, True. We were real sick then, freezing to death, and starving. Survival instincts in us can get real ugly. That's why the Grendler was so mad at me.  
Be very, very glad that Z.E.D. didn't try to eat you instead of darting you. That's another thing this planet's never caught on and figured out how to do by watching us." he told her.

Twenty minutes later, some of the depression in the group had lifted.

True tried to glance over at her partner in crime during school lessons, but Uly was too busy trying to focus his eyes on the fire. She contented herself with just talking to the rocky ceiling in the cave instead. "Say, Uly."

"What?"

"How do the Terrians stay healthy if they don't eat?"

"They just... are. And they just ...go where they want to be." Uly told her. "Where ever that is."

"Can they be born?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen that long ago yet. The Mother's so literal minded. Everything's all right here, and all about what's happening right now, that's messing her up."

"It's messing up you, too, Uly." Devon warned, as the boy tried to sit up. Adair kept him lying flat on the cot. "Don't get up."

"All I need is clean dirt, mom. That's all. The stuff around here's like the station." he mumbled, falling asleep again.

Devon was surprised. "That's right! That's what we found on the day Uly was cured of his Station's syndrome. How could we not see that answer before?"

Julia sighed, monitoring Uly's new snores with her diaglove. "We've had a lot on our mind. Finding food. Figuring out the Balancer and the true purpose of Moon Cross."

Yale blinked, holding up his hand. "Speaking of which, how long do we have left of the three hour eclipse tonight?"

Morgan looked at his watch. "One hour, ten minutes left. I...sort of set my stop watch." he said self consciously.

"That's not much time at all. We have to go find her." Devon said, shooting to her feet.

"Find who?" Magus asked.

"The Balancer! To set our plan in motion! Come on, let's go!" shouted Adair.  



	10. Chapter 10

The night was hot and rank with dry rotting vegetation and animal decay. True was intelligent enough to feel horror for Kitty, her Koba, whose family was currently trying to flee the contagion zone, and most likely failing. The telltale scent of musky sweetness and boiled Earth peas from their unseen carasses sprawled in clusters underneath the eye stalks, was making her heartsick. She brought up a valid question to Heller, speaking through her silent tears of comprehension. She almost choked at the smell which was announcing Kitty's rapid species line's eradication. "Why isn't he as sick or..or.. dying like the others, Julia?"

Heller was taken aback visably. "Well, ...your Koba's has had...physical contact with us and he's eaten our food, which, despite its inherent Station pollution, is much richer than anything growing native. Nutrition is a core necessity for all living things, True. He's been very well fed by us over the last few months. His internal Phage infection's probably being resisted as a result." she smiled, trying to give True hope.

"Is he going to die?" the Danzinger child finally asked, her lower lip quivering. True cradled her side as sobs wracked the stitches over her ribs where she had been shot. "If so, when? I want to be ready.." she sniffed.

Julia felt a pang at the brave face John's daughter was putting on. She reached over and took the backpack True had sitting between her legs which was serving as Kitty's traveling nest. She unzipped the top and carefully unwrapped the T shirt that Kitty was swaddled in, to expose the top of his head. She cautiously laid two diaglove fingers on the weakily warbling, napping Koba's head and performed a diagnostic scan. True softly hushed her pet as he startled awake in fright at its sudden hum, with a few caressing fingers to his chin. The dia-glove spit out a sour note a few seconds later and issued a readout to its screen. Heller sighed. "He's the same, True. He might be depressed because he knows that others of his kind in this area are dead. If you can keep him eating, he might hang on to life a little longer."

"...what?..." the girl croaked in a very tiny voice, denying what was happening. "..no.." she whispered.

"I'm sorry. I wish I could say something good. It's just that, we don't know Kobas as well as we could, yet." Julia told her.

"Hang on a minute. Don't talk like that, Julia. Kitty loves you very much, True." said Uly, rolling over on his cot. "That's why he chose to leave his family and come live with you. Haven't you seen how he stung Morgan and O'Neill just so he could stay with you? He doesn't want you to give up on him. You're all he's got now. So don't let him see you cry."

Bess Martin, cleaning up after their dinner and fruit tea, smiled sadly. "Nobody's giving up just yet, True. Yes, this blight was human caused, but we've just learned that it might very much be something we can ultimately stop. We've found a powerful ally in The Balancer who agrees that time still exists to reverse this genocide effect and end the damage being done to the planet."

True started to cry in earnest. "Nobody can bring back the dead, doctor!"

##I cccccccan.## said Uly, his face suddenly becoming strong and vibrant, with his eyes glowing red in Terrian dream mode. It had to be the Mother's voice that they all heard; complex, multi layered, feminine... A cacaphony of sound. ##FFFFFFor all small life, is mine. I ssssstart anew. I will speak to this exo-bonded Kobaaaaaa...##

Heller jolted back on her heels, away from Kitty as the mini reptile looking hippo-skinned biped suddenly convulsed in ectasy at a mental touch. He suddenly shot out all of the sedative thorn claws simultaenously from all twelve of his limb digits. Each projectile narrowly missed striking Eden Project people as they burst forth and embedded themselves into tents or cave walls, into the ceiling, or into the metal shell of the food hydrolizer. He began to purr very very loudly, making True laugh.

"What was that?!" Morgan Martin shrieked, ducking for cover way too late. "Is your disgusting pet trying to kill us, True?!"

True answered happily.. "No, Mr. Martin. He's shedding! Kitty's finally coming out of his emergency hibernation!"

##This TTTTTTTurning must be nnnnnnullified.## Uly spoke in the voice of the planet.

Next to them, the eerie light in Uly's eyes faded away, along with the overwhelming presence they all felt pressing softly on their minds. "We will help with that." the boy promised Her, and he instantly, went back to sleep.

Julia Heller, narrating.. " 'First do no harm.' is part of the oath I took from Hippocrates as a physician, five years ago today. Now I don't know if that creed even operates any more on this G*d forsaken planet. I was at the end of my wits earlier this spring when I thought I had been permanently outcast from the rest of the group. Now it seems that the group is being permanently cast out by the rest of the planet. Partly by our own species' design, and the rest due to the metaphysical effects that is every doctor's sworn enemy, death. We can't eat anything but that, which is freshly dead, or still alive. Mostly as plants. The dust that everything is now, is in a zone so large, that Zero cannot find the edge of it even on his widest scans. According to Yale's calculations, the Phage may already have touched as far as the Western beaches. I can only say one thing at this point for my monthly diary. Thank G*d, salt's so lethal to bacteria across the known galaxy. G889's oceans will most likely be perfect natural barriers to the spread of this engineered, human caused infection. I am only regretting that I don't have a shot large enough to save everybody's lives who are still living here under the constant germ threat."

Morgan Martin, narrating.. "G*d the world is really closing in! I feel like I'm going crazy. I just noticed the marks I left on Uly's hand, when I caught myself gripping it so tightly, when another mumbo jumbo session of his hit. It's always when you least expect it. I swear I don't have anything left of my stomach lining no matter what Julia says otherwise. I can't sleep at night. I can't eat. I gag just looking at eyestalks now. There's just something about your food when it has the power to look back at you from your dinner plate that sickens me. I wish I could run away, but there's nowhere to run to. And Bess, she's been my only saving grace. Without her, I don't know what I would do being stranded like we are in the middle of an out of control extinction event. Uly's creepy, but he makes me feel just a bit safer than any of the others past my wife. It's probably because I know the Terrians won't kill him. Golden Boy, invalid extraordinaire'. I hate him especially, because he usually gets what he wants all of the time."

Devon, John, Magus, Julia, Cameron, and Yale, fully armed with Mag-pros, ran out of the cave to where Zero was standing watch with Uly's flickering staff.

The sentry robot automatically gave them a perimeter update. "No bipeds detected. Ambient light is 42% of normal illumination."

Yale, the tutor cyborg chuckled. "That's a lunar eclipse, Zero. Access your files on G889's local astronomy."

"I shall. Immediately. Hmmm. Three eclipses in one seven G889 equivalent day period every 180 solar days, causing both terrestrial and oceanic shadowing. Each occurrence is separated by exactly one and 6/8th's solar days." the robot reported. "Tonight starts the first eclipse trio run of the current E2 year."

"Enough of the science lesson, Zero. Can you summon the Balancer back into your circuitry? We need to talk to her." Danzinger ordered.

"I...do not understand that command." the android replied, after a brief pause.

Devon Adair stormed up to Zero's eye sensors. She was careful not to touch the static arcing Terrian staff being held still as a rock in his limb manipulators. "Zero. Are you still on continuous patrol record mode?"  
she asked their automoton.

"Yes."

"Well, then. Examine record Alpha B711 from last night. 2200 Zulu to daybreak. Review, and capitulate Unit John Danziger's order." she snapped out, pacing a nervous circle at a safe distance around him, impatiently.

"I do not understand that command, Unit Devon."

"&% ! What does not compute, Zero? Do it now!" Adair swore out loud. "What a multi million dollar pile of -"

Yale spoke up. "Devon.. let me try. There's every chance the Balancer did not use traceable technology when she interacted with us. If so, then Zero will have no knowledge of her. We'll have to reach our Terrian benefactor in another way."

"Oh, yeah?" asked John, genuninely amused at Adair's ire, a sign of robust health is his eyes. He was very interested in seeing a successful, second solution. "How, Yale?"

The cyborg tutor reached out and grasped Uly's staff that was clutched in Zero's fingers with his own cybernetic grip. He raised the stick and both of their machine hands towards the nearest moon and closed his eyes. A huge jolt of raw laser beam shot out of the fork and ribbon prong at the top of the staff with a deafening crack. It began to hum as the projected energy lanced out into space. Eden Project couldn't resist looking up after it from their bellies where they had thrown themselves on the ground. The roaring rosy beam continued to travel at light speed until it struck the craggy moon's lunar surface with a light splash that lit up its whole planet facing shadowed disc in a brilliant red. "Umhhffff.. So that did not hurt. As I suspected." he smiled. "That was easy."

"What did you just do?" John asked, still cringing at the light beam slicing into the sky.

"I am ringing the Balancer's doorbell. This staff is harnessing the static charges stored over the eons within the bedrock beneath our feet. All it takes is a little magneticism to call it free." he shared. "I surmised that this connection is how the Terrians swim through the earth."

"Yale,.. they aren't robots." frowned Devon. "Terrians don't have metal hands."

"They have metal bones, Devon, underneath their ichor skin. When they flex their muscles, the magnetic state takes over and then they can travel inside of any dirt once they move their heads just a little bit. If they don't move, they can directionally fire that energy, like I just did, into a protective or a signalling bolt." Yale shared, excited about being successful in his experimentation.

All of the sudden, Yale's light spear was being deflected back with a lurid blue one, being pushed swiftly in reverse, until it slammed back into Uly's staff in a colorful spray of St. Elmo's Fire. Yale let go of Zero's hand, ending his use of the ground's power. "Ah, there she is. I knew her mode of mental travel had to be by light wave technology." the tutor smiled. "Zero doesn't have any."

The others stepped back cautiously when Zero's head tilted into a familiar rag doll awkward pose with a faint blue fire glowing in his eye sensors. The Balancer immediately made things totally safe for Eden Project. She opened Zero's digits and released Uly's staff from the android's grip. It tumbled to the ground, rendered as harmless as the inert ribbon and wood it truly was. "Is the boy in trouble? I felt him."

Devon Adair whipped into her VR gear to monitor the vital signs readout on Uly's cot monitor. "I... don't understand. This says he's doing fine. He's just sleeping." She drew away the gear's interface from her eye. "Balancer, what was it that you just felt?"

Bess Martin, popped out of the med tent with urgent news. "The Mother just contacted us, through Uly. She cured True's Koba and then begged for help from us directly, on ending the Phage's extinction effects. She called it, the Turning."

Julia nodded. "That's a good analogy to an infection, a turning into a changing state of life and health."

"The Mother..." the Balancer whispered in awe. "She has never spoken to us, although we know She is there inside our Lands."

The tutor's mind was on overdrive for the group. "We don't have much time left of this eclipse tonight, uh,...of this Moon Cross, Balancer. Only one hour remains. Then we'll have nothing until the second Crossover in about two days. We have an idea to fix the sickness, but it potentially involves more destruction. On a massive scale." Yale explained. "We need to find a way to contact Mother to show her what this plan of ours will do. If it works, this Phage, uh,...the Turning, will then be contained completely, to cause no more harm."

The Balancer angled Zero's head as she contemplated the data and tried to understand it. "Does it involve use of the interrogators? They are functioning in a new pattern that I know not."

John Danziger startled. "I'll say they are, Balancer. They just shot my only offspring a few hours ago. We think they're being used to try and wipe out the Phage. They think our children are the germs."

"I... don't understand. I can see them on the Mother's Lands. And I watch them at times. Like now." she replied. "They are part device, like this one, through which I'm speaking to you."

Yale simplified the question. "Balancer, in our language, interrogator equals Z.E.D.. Do you know how many Z.E.D. there are on the planet in total?"

"22."

Devon Adair grew impatient." And how many are aware and currently oriented on us humans in camp?"

"9. Niner. 9. 9.. 9...9..." Just as quickly, the blue light in Zero's eye modulators flashed and went dark, leaving behind a very bewildered android sentry in the Balancer's place.

Zero spoke in his normal baritone. "What just happened? I am off patrol."  
"Oh my. Did we offend the Balancer?" whispered Yale. "We don't stand a chance if the planet now chooses to act against us."

A gaze motion shift in the field of eyestalks, cast from the group, to the med tent, alerting everybody into aiming a few mag-pros into the direction of the disturbance. The scent of fresh water grew stronger as the yellow plants globally increased their bait and lure smell in reaction.

Morgan Martin came out of the tent, bearing the sleeping Uly in his arms. Everybody swept up their gun muzzles to the sky in shock to avoid shooting him.

At the sight, Devon Adair got mad. "What are you doing touching my son, Morgan?!"

The look on his face was beatific and gentle. "I am sorry, Devon. I did not mean to frighten you." he said in a soft cadence. "But we need him now to be our eyes and ears and voice to the Mother."

Morgan's usual nervous twitching and sense of unease, were entirely gone from his messy, long ponytailed posture, and demeanor.

Bess looked askance at him. "Balancer? Is that you in there with my husband?" she wondered, peering closely at his eyes.

"Yes." Mr. Martin replied, gracefully laying Uly down onto the ground by Zero's feet. He picked up and carefully placed the Terrian staff back into one of the boy's lax hands. "He is most interesting. He does not prefer to be on this World with us."

At the touch of its wood, Uly awoke and opened his eyes. "Hi, Mom. I'm all right. It's so good hear my friends again." he said calmly, still sleepy. "The Balancer's back."

Devon and Julia knelt by the boy, but they didn't physically touch him when the staff started fluxing with it's tesla-like static charge again in a dull golden glow.

Heller brought out her dia-glove and scanned him. "He's still weak, but getting no worse." Then the doctor scanned Morgan Martin who did not mind at all for once. "And he's ...well, Bess, I don't know how better to put this. He's... been tamed. I think. He's no longer showing his normal earmarks of continual stress."

In a test, Alonzo Solace pinched Morgan's arm, hard. Morgan did not react. Alonzo's eyes grew wide with amusement. "Our hypochondriac's no longer hyper. Look at that!"

Beside him, Bess started laughing. "Well, Balancer. You work better than VR for all of my husband's phobias.. Would you mind moving in permanently?" she joked.

Even John Danziger smiled. Only Magus and Cameron still looked ill at ease with the mental possession.

The Balancer stated the obvious. "I can only remain on this World during each Moon Cross, of which this night's ends soon."

Morgan Martin shook his head for a moment. "Wow, she feels like a fine brandy going down. But I'm still in control of myself." he told the others. "Why am I not frightened by this?"

"Because it feels good. Shut up." Julia snapped, putting away her mediglove. "Let your guest use your mouth, Morgan Martin."

"Uh, okay.." Morgan mumbled, still smiling stupidly with alien intelligence mixed in.

John Danziger took charge. "Uly, are you ready to do your stuff with that thing?" he asked, tossing a head at the sputtering Terrian staff in Uly's grip.

"I'm always ready!" the boy exclaimed defensively which made his mother smile. "I'm not even cold without my blankets tonight."

"Then we best begin." The tutor reminded the group. "Balancer, what do you need the boy to do to reach your Mother since you say he is the one most favored by the Terrians?"

"He must think about the small life who are Lost." said Morgan/Balancer, as he/she raised his/her arms. As far as the horizon, skeletons of Kobas, Terrians and even a Grendler rose into the air at the behest of the tendrils of energy that sprouted out from the top of Uly's staff, from where they had previously lay hidden underneath the grass and eye stalk meadows.

The resulting smell of rot and flesh decay made the Eden Project people gag. Julia spoke from around a hand pressed protectively over her nose and mouth. "Okay, we get the picture! Please put them down again where the wind can't reach. The smell of death is almost overwhelm-"

"Such is the suffering of the Mother." said Uly, his eyes glowing Terrian dream red. "She comes. aahHHHHHH !" he moaned as the planetary presence returned into his consciousness."There you are! I've missed you! Can I-" the boy broke off as his eyes closed.

"IIII ammmm HHHHhhhere..." the Mother spoke as Uly himself settled back onto the ground and into a relaxed pose. The rain of putrid bones falling from the air was deafening as Her power manifest itself into the vicinity and over the Balancer's helpful one. A clean, fresh wind entered camp and blew away the smell of death. "IIII willlllll lllllistennnn." She promised.

Bess Martin stood forward and lifted up a geolock device with both of her hands to show Her. "Mother. This is the machine that we believe will cull the tiny Earth life that no eye can see, that is causing the Turning."

"Annn exo-deviceeee. LLLikee the not-life on your backssss and in your bodiessssss." the Mother replied. "Thhhe Mech-in-aaahhhh."

Eden Project shot glances at the Mag-pros they were holding over their shoulders and at Yale's cybernetic implants.

John Danziger knelt down by Uly and studied his entranced, serene, sleeping face, speaking seriously. "A machine, yes, like the Z.E.D."

"...interrogators..." whispered the Balancer/Morgan, in support.

"IIIIt caused a Lostttt.."

Devon's eyes widened. "She remembers the Terrian we froze in the rock with a geolock."

John spoke again. "You can clear out the Terrians this time. Move the small life. All of them. Into safe places not yet infected. Then the machine could be used to stop the Phage that is making the Lost."

"TTTTTThhe LLLLLandDD WWwwwilllLLL DDDie."

Yale said. "No.. It will be paused. In stasis. In an alive/not alive time."

"Like..um...like frozen ice. Like water, that is solid." Alonzo piped up.

The Mother was silent.

True took Alonzo's hand in kinship to show her tie to the group. "Like winter, Mother. No growth. Just until the tiny life causing the sickness dies."

It seemed like the very earth was thinking very deeply. Even the eyestalks ceased their endless murmurations.

Devon kept on talking. "But we can't travel fast enough to find the edge of the extinction zone. It is still expanding out in a circle from where it began fifty years ago. Can you help us? Uly says he needs clean dirt again in order to get better, like what you did for him the first time you met." Adair choked up. "Mother, please. He-he will become one of the forever Lost if we can't reach the edge in time to get more."

There was a crunch of stone and suddenly Eden Project was surrounded by nine Z.E.D., aiming guns at their heads.

"Don't move." John hissed. "Don't move a muscle, anybody. Just do what they s-" he fell into silence when he saw the finger of one of the super soldiers twitch on a worm rifle's trigger.

"Tttttthe Ttturningggg bbbegannnnn bbbbecauseee of tttthe nnnnotttt-wwwwe! Ttttthhheyy wwwwillll allllll cceaseeee!" said Mother through Uly.

The boy was conscious, and he had understood the planet voice's threat. "No! Don't! I am not we! Terrians' chose me to be their speaker! So did you, to be yours! We didn't do it!"

"Sssooo mmmmmanyyyyy LLlllosttttTTT !" roared the Earth 2 intelligence.

Only Morgan/Balancer felt at ease. He/she had no gun following his/her movements. "Mother, hear me, one of yours." the unseen Terrian/seen Earther man began. "I have communicated much to these not-we. I see their lives are short, just a span of one tree's. This batch of exo life was all not yet, when the Turning began. The exo who violated the Lands are long Lost and are harmless dust on the ground. These, whom we are with, hold my heart, as you hold Uly. They fight hard for life here, as we once did. Recall that Terrians were once exo's, too!"

Every eye stalk on the mountain suddenly turned and looked right at Morgan Martin who only slightly, flinched. He felt like his brain was being x-ray-ed. Then the pressure released in a warm rush.

"TTTttthhheeen sssSSSTandDDDdd beforeeeee TTThemMMM aaand lleaD. SSSSssave mMy LLLostTTTT, SSSSSisterRRRR." And suddenly, the Gaia presence was gone. Uly sucked in a breath and held it, as he felt a transfer of power away from himself and being focused nearby.

Morgan Martin issued a cry and grabbed his head as something blue and glowing leaped out of his body and landed feet first on top of a rock. The eye stalks started singing and staring at the figure that was appearing in that spot, bit by bit, inside of a warm yellow glow. It was a slender albino Terrian, bearing clean white moon dust in both of her delicate hands. ##I am the Balancer. And I will not take this boy's life as one of the Lost.## she sang joyfully in a dreamscape that all of Eden Project could see while wide awake. The Balancer leaped over to Uly and sprinkled bits of her moon all over the boy. The glowing powder sank into his body, and disappeared like rain soaking into thirsty soil. Then she reached down and drew him up by the hand to stand by her side with their fingers laced together; the tiny boy and the impossibly tall white Terrian. A pure, snow colored staff, an albaster mirror of the one Uly held, appeared in her free hand and burst into yellow fire. She cried out and the yellow fire struck every one of the Z.E.D. in the World, burning them first to a crisp, then to a sour vapor, which dissipated on the planetwide winds into nothingness.

Zero warbled an update. "We are no longer in danger.."

"What?" Devon startled.

"I am scanning no Z.E.D. traces anywhere on the surface." the android clarified.

'Impossible!" Morgan Martin squawked. "They're super soldiers!"

John held up his hand held scanner. "They're gone. T-They're not here. No emissions are registering!" he said happily, not quite believing it.

True leaped at her Dad, and squeezed him in a hug. "The bad guys never win!"

Julia squatted very still in the dead grass, leaning forward on the balls of her feet, cradling her dia-glove in her arms. "Alonzo, are we truly free? No more of those damned worm bullets?"

Solace grinned and flipped on his vicinity VR which fed off Zero's telemetry. "It's true. The way's clear, Julia. In all directions!" he celebrated.

Bess Martin marvelled. "Nuture first?" she smiled crookedly. "That's so inhuman." she said, wrapping her arms around a still dizzy but relaxed Morgan.

Yale recovered first. "What was that last part, Balancer? What just happened? It almost blinded us."

The snow Terrian regarded the dark shaded teacher. ##I have been gifted freedom from my task to become the Mother of your clan and all of its future generations. That was protection, mechina man.## she declared, shaking her ice shaded scaley pelt, which sparkled in the sun. "Tell me. Instant talk. How exactly should we do this Stopping?"

Yale answered frankly. "We need to find the edge of the falling Lost. On the surface, down below, whereever it is in effect, Balancer. We call this an extinction zone. Oh, and it might be in the lakes and rivers and clouds, if you have small life that dwells there inside liquids or vapors."

##We do not. Xero life is only in the ground, touching it, or in the air.## the Balancer flowed delicately with words.

"The Koba gliders." Uly remembered.

##The ears of the wind.## agreed the Balancer, stooping low to caress a cluster of yellow eye stalk ferns, who were watching her intently. ##Like the eyes on the land, which I grew for you.##

Bess was surprised. "You were watching us last week even before we escaped Eve?"

##Mary-exo contacted I through the Mists. She said you nutured her life back from being Lost. This is being like a Xero. So we nutured the Devon-unit. The Turning made a way of walls against nuturing the Uly. He was Lost bound. Light am I that he called The Mother. She gifted I, so I can protect exos. And the Uly.##

Cameron could not help but ask a question. "But weren't those Z.E.D. Terrian or Grendler, Balancer?"

##They were not Xero.##

This answer gave chills up and down Eden Project's spine. Devon and John exchanged looks. ::If we had opened fire on anybody last week to kill. We would have been marked for erasure as surely as the Z.E.D.::


	11. Chapter 11

Yale was extremely thoughtful over his most recent reconstituted meal, at dawn. "So Xero equals any life formed on G889."

Devon Adair followed his thought as she watched an energetic, once again healthy Uly teach the elegant, pure white, long limbed Balancer how to run. "And exo means us, the invaders." The two of them, were being chased by a veritable sea of yellow eye stalks, lumbering close behind the albino Terrian and the boy, in a following chase, on their feathery tap roots. "Well, there goes dinner. Heading south after my son and our very own personal deity."

"Good!" muttered Morgan Martin, flipping back over on his cot in the med tent. "I was getting sick of of..of eating animated eyeball salad every night, any way."

"There's always spirolina pancakes." chipped in Bess brightly.

"Don't remind me." groaned her sleepy husband.

"Humans." piped up Zero from where he was washing dishes daintily in a tub that had been place next to one of the parked Transrovers. "Exo-planetary beings of other world origins, with respect to Earth 2, which is here, and Terra which is..."

"Thanks for the history lesson, Zero, but it's not time yet." True groaned from where she was still trying to take a nap while she healed, the stitches from both of her worm bullet holes, were itchy today. She reached up a hand to her ribs sleepily. "School's out until the sun comes back. Not enough light to etch notes on any laserpads. Two more lunar eclipses happening, remember?"

A turquoise and hot pink pillow flew out of nowhere to plunk True on top of the head. "Ouch!" the Danzinger girl protested, throwing her hands up to collect the soft square that had fallen onto her face.

"No scratching!" said Julia Heller, the pillow throwing doctor. "Feels good but introduces dirt and .."  
"There's no bacteria here." the nine year old blond tom boy dressed mechanic's daughter sighed sarcastically. "Only the one we started, the Phage."

Alonzo Solace made a buzzing game show noise. "Not us. Our predecessors did, True."

"Oh, so sorry. Quite right. A group of bad humans of the same genetic type and ignorant disposition from fifty years ago, infected the whole world." True finished dramatically, casting up exasperated arms as she flopped back against her dad's chest from where she sat in his lap as he napped in the sun. "So, Dad, how does it feel to be an alien."

He didn't reply, so True jabbed a firm elbow on her uninjured side, into his soft belly to wake him up more.

"Oof, what half pint? Oh.. that. We're pretty boring if you ask me. Nobody got any superpowers for landing here."

"Oh, yeah?" piped up Cameron. "So whatdiya call that dreaming thing you guys do with the Terrians? Last time I checked, none of us were telepathic before G889, big guy."

"We aren't clairvoyant, the Terrians are." said Uly. "They allow us to speak to them."

"That's really nice of them." Morgan simpered. "I really wish they wouldn't. It's not natural talking without moving any lips."

Julia chuckled. "I don't think they breathe either. Handy knack. Wish I had it." she said, digging around a Transrover crate for another nutripowder can to make "coffee" for everybody over their green colored camp fire.

"You'd like burying yourself underground like when they earthwalk?" Mr. Martin sputtered at their doctor.

"Why not? Probably feels like swimming in a silo full of corn seed." Bess Martin grinned. "Did that once."

"Bess, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm from the Stations." Martin reminded.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot that I'm the only one who's ever seen the real Earth." Bess sighed, staring up at the ruby red eclipse slowly getting redder by the minute over their heads. It filled half the sky. "This place feels almost like it, when I close my eyes."

"Don't. Something might eat you." Alonzo joked.

"Not a chance, pilot boy. I'm a fast runner. Who do you think taught Uly to run so well?" she smiled.

Six hands shot up in the air at the question from members of Eden Project all around her.

"Oh, poo. All right, we all did. I thought I was the only one." frowned Mrs. Martin.

Yale was frank. "I'd be getting claustrophobic right about now if I didn't already know that this eclipsing moon is actually five thousand miles away from us up there. Feels like a lid, getting pressed down over a bug jar."

The tutor's comment ended everybody else's carefree mood over the rare, lazy, pseudo evening falling over them.

"Sorry." Yale apologized. "It wasn't very pretty for imagery. I'm still learning."

Under the giant red shadow moon's light, the Balancer looked like she was on fire.


	12. Chapter 12

"Mooooonn Crosssssss..." the white Terrian sang as she danced with joy at being given her freedom by Mother. "I'm in Mooooooon Thralllll!"

Chittering, the mobile, yellow fern leafed food/medicine plants, the eye stalks, gave up chasing her and returned their curiosity and most of themselves, back to where the thoughtful boy was now crouching by Devon Adair. Ulysses set out a hand, palm up onto the ground and absently let a few of the smallest ones climb onto his hand in their eagerness to become his snack. "I wonder.." he sighed, nimbly biting the top off of an eyestalk and crunching thoughtfully.

"Wonder what?" his mother entoned dully, kissing him lightly on the top of his head.

"The mists are forming again in all of the moon pools. Couldn't we go swimming in a cave and get to where we're going a little faster?" said Uly, making funny faces at his mother to try and ease her mood.

Devon shrugged. "We're on a plain, silly son." she chuckled. "All the caves we've ever found were near the mountains. We can't even see any from here."

"Mom, the Balancer can dig. If she used to be the train conductor for all of those Terrians going back and forth from the moons, she probably knows all of the train stations she used to use during other Moon Crosses. How is this time any different?"

Uly's comments excited John Danzinger. "Whoa. What a thought. But does she still remember her pools? She's been changed by the planet to be a demigod. She might not recollect any of her previous existence any more."

Yale just smiled ruefully and swept his cybernetic arm out towards the fire flamed Terrian cavorting like a human child at play. "How can you witness such a carefree self celebration as that, and think otherwise? Balancer clearly remembers something from the time before, if how and where she is now, is so much better."

Julia Heller and Bess Martin shot up to their feet, abandoning the cooking fire. "We'll go ask her." said the doctor, picking up her dia-glove medical scanner.

"Pose a request for her to heal my daughter like she did Uly."

"Might not work. True isn't Terrian tied." Julia frowned.

"It can't hurt to ask." John called out after them.

True added her two cents worth. "Why not? They healed Kitty. I'm tired of itching!"

The two women waved at their curly haired leader cheerfully, and then jogged out past the parked vehicles and the tents to the rose lit sand meadow flat, that the Balancer had found, and quickly joined up with her in a tag game.

Danziger wasn't above a little caution. He sent Zero behind them to act as a guard dog or a distraction if the liberated Terrian suddenly chose to act aggressive, like her brethren, at the roots. "Zero. Follow. Monitor and protect units Adair and Heller."

The white metal android plodded dutifully after them, kicking up sand behind his heels, in his wake.

Alonzo Solace raised up both of his eyebrows as he drank his brewed nutri-powder out of a battered mug. "Isn't that a bit paranoid?" he asked the burly mechanic. "Sending Zero as a chaparone?"

"Paranoia is probably the only reason why we're all still alive, Solace." Danziger replied seriously. "It's the only redeeming trait we share with this G*dforsaken world and its inhabitants. G889's not the Garden of Eden. But humankind is definitely one of its Serpents."

True Danziger, narrating: "It's so good to see Kitty acting normal again. He's eating every nutribar I offer to him and he's started sniffing around again for other Kobas. I can't believe that all of the Z.E.D. are gone forever. It seems like every time I close my eyes, I hear the whine of a worm bullet gun being locked and loaded and pointed at me, from the bushes."

Morgan Martin, narrating: "Finally, I can get some sleep. Nothing's tried to kill me for hours now, and it's making me jumpy. That pale walking scaley scarecrow can't be the only answer to our resident monster plague problem. I really love my wife for coming up with the idea of using geolocks to flash cure the world. I can't wait. Like her, it'll be a bit wild, and undeniably beautiful when those doomsday devices finally go off."

Alonzo Solace, narrating: "I can't see the stars any more. The one constant in my life. D*mned moons are covering the whole sky now. It's almost suffocating. Even the wind's died down since Moon Cross One reached its perogee. I'm so tired. Give me a ship! Or a course to fly, or a direction to follow. Just give me something to do.. anything... that might show me that our horrific journey through H*ll is coming to an end."

The Balancer, heart speaking: "The mists call to me still. I hear.. but I no longer have to obey. The exo-life are my tribe now and the smallest of them, is my future Prince, the Mother tells me. How strange of a Voice they have. Full of hurt feeling and burn feeling. The Devon calls those fear and anger. My heart mantle trembles. The task talked from the exos, is a stopping of all of the xenos who are on their way to the final black by using metal shells and energy created by the exos. I can cure the Turning in all of them. Happily. But about this last, I do not know. Can I actually let myself kill the womb of my Mother?"

The Eden Advance crew waited with bated breath until Julia and Devon Adair returned to the fire.

"What did she say?" Yale asked, noticing that the Balancer was standing still with her head lowered and with her limbs held rigid and unmoving.

Devon Adair tossed her head in irritation. "Well, at least, it wasn't too much of a riddle."

The cyborg tutor frowned in incomprehension.

"She'll move all of us. And our vehicles, too.. 'When the Mother Moves.' she said." their doctor reported. Julia Heller made straight for the nutri-coffee pot and poured both herself and Adair, very heavy cups.

Morgan Martin's face fell blankly, at first. "I don't get it. Isn't the planet a-always in motion? It-it's still safely in stable orbit around the sun, isn't it?" he fidgeted, shooting a panicked look into the bloody moon covered night sky.

Devon chuffed her frustration. "Everything's fine, Morgan. Well at least, outer space is."

John Danziger rose to his feet from his stool. "Yeah, and how about our inner space proposal? Exactly what does 'Move' mean?"

Julia Heller shivered and then crouched down to warm herself by the emerald shaded camp fire. "John, you know how this planet works.  
The Balancer's referring probably to some kind of... global biological... process." she said hesitantly, glancing reluctantly at Mr. Martin.

Morgan glared back. "You mean, like the porter flowers, who forced us to carry their pollen to the Great Big Winter hole in the ground so Spring could arrive after a few carefully placed puke donations." he spat in sarcasm. "Un-friggin' believable."

"Well,.. G889 is alive. And one organism I think." the blond haired physician reasoned. "Give the Balancer a break. She doesn't know our language well enough yet to corollate words with the things that she knows about, because they may not be in our lingual database."

"How convenient. Maybe Zero can translate." Morgan growled, shoving past the petite woman to the coffee pot. "We know that's gonna work out because they were sharing heads and bodies, not three hours ago."

True Danziger did not laugh. "How would you feel if you were abandoned among strangers with stuff you've never seen before and had to work with them?"

A part of Morgan's ire died with the challenge from the little tomboy girl. "Pretty unhappy."

Uly echoed the thought. "The Balancer is reborn. I kind of felt that way when the Terrians first visited me. I didn't know what to do with myself. Not until we talked about it a little more."

John Danziger sighed. "We don't have that kind of time. Every day we delay reaching the edge of the death zone means the circle of extinction caused by the Phage we released is that much larger than the day before. If we wait too long to act, our whole continental food chain might die and we'll sure as H*ll follow them after we starve to death."

Uly looked up at John ironically. "How can we go hungry Mr. Danziger? The eye stalk ferns are here and staying with us."

Julia Heller startled. "Another cure? Not surgery, but.. adaptation!" She knelt and ripped a few of the ambling plants out of the ground. "They were made for us specifically to be consumed by our kind of metabolism. Quite recently." she said triumphantly, clutching the yellow ferns to her chest.

"Two weeks ago, when we found Bennet's sleeper ship." said Danziger. "Long after the plague was released fifty years ago."

"Yes, John. Why are they not dying from the Phage? Everything else is.. And they're right in the middle of the zone of infection alongside us." the doctor laughed. "Why didn't I see this before?"

"Because they're animated plants? Easy to dismiss because they're disgusting. Lab created?" True guessed.

"Totally different from the natives. Right!" Julia whirled and snapped her fingers in celebration. "So, who were their creators?

That question rocked everybody in Eden Advance, to the core. Nobody spoke.

Heller's face dripped sweat.  
"If they did that kind of feat, they must be genetic engineers of a very high order." Julia went on, out of breath with discovery. "Because we're not from here. They unravelled our entire alien DNA code in less than a month? Impossible. The only technology on this world that could have done that are the Earth supplies we rained down onto the planet ourselves."

"Oh my G*d." Yale whispered.

"Well, what does that mean?" Morgan asked, uncomfortably. "Why did you curse, Yale. Not inspiring my confidence."

"We did it. Some time between when the Venus class research ship crashed and when we arrived by sabotage." Julia Heller said softly. "Via the Council. They've been monitoring us this far. All the way from the Stations. It's the only answer."

"But they're all dead." John Danziger spat. "They died when we muzzled Eve after restoring her computer ethics back to default. Her terminal down here burned up in a city sized pile of Morganite."

"Ah, but Eve was a computer with cryo sleeper beds, that had been here for fifty years, on her own. She could have easily manipulated organic samples and materials to come up with the eyestalks. That was her programming; to help us. We learned that." Devon Adair said.

"The humans on the council are dead, that's true. But their simulacrums were endlessly preserved as holograms, which could have still given orders to that effect, to Eve before we met her, and following the deaths and illnesses of Bennet's crew." Julia surmised.

"That's what made me sick?" Devon paled. "I walked onto the ship and the spores of the eyestalks were released from their stasis when we opened up those d*mned cryobeds to get to Elizabeth and Michael."

"You suffered an allergy. It fits. That's why I couldn't find out what was wrong with you. An allergy is the body fighting itself. It's... only coincidental that you don't have a bio-implant like the rest of us." Julia nodded.

"Reaching beyond the grave, the bastards!" John swore. "They're using us to assure the human race colonizes this planet 100% with us lined up to be the only ones left in the end. Those eyestalks are our sea turtle on the sailing ship."

"And the Phage is like the flu among the Inca." Yale whispered.

"Yeah, well our own people did their job too f-ing well in my book. I'm not going to stand around any more and be pushed around by someone else's dream." John Danziger. "The Phage. It's here. Eyestalks. Also here. All of this Council d*mned back story and full history doesn't matter one whit. We're the ones still alive. Not any of them. What we do now and for the future hangs over our heads like an executioner's axe. We need to stick with our plan of action. Our survival depends on it. And the Balancer, is the best key to our next step. Let's go figure out how to prod her into helping us a little faster. And I don't care if we have to wake her up out of a dancing Moon Thrall to do it."


	13. Chapter 13

The Balancer stopped her revels with the Exo child when the non-light of the second eclipse began to deepen its maroon cast. "Synergy?" she said to Uly, who had been in mid-laugh. It was her first spoken out loud Space Common word. The Balancer's voice was musical, like birdsong and bells. Devon Adair looked up when her son's happy sounds suddenly cut off into an awed contemplative silence when the moonlight shadow intensified.

Uly joined his mother without ever taking his eyes off of the sky at the sight of low hanging bloody moon filling all but the most distant horizons surrounding them. A suddenly rising, dusty cold wind began to blow as soon as Balancer stopped speaking.

The boy was transfixed, and he turned to face it. ::Yes. That's what we must do now. Can we use this yet, for all of us?:: he trilled to the albino Terrian who was arms outstretched to the heavens, as if basking, under its stormy shadow.

John Danziger squatted down by the young boy warily. "Just what exactly does she have in mind to help us find the edge, Uly?" he asked him.

Uly regarded the mechanic wryly. "Did you forget how already, Mr. Danziger?" His eyes began to glow red.

John let go of the boy's arms quickly. "How what?" he finally put out.

"We earthwalked together. That first night in the cave, when you found me after I was made better. Didn't you have fun?" asked Uly.

Danziger stood up, but to his credit, he didn't back away from Uly. "I don't remember any of that. I only remember wondering whether or not you were still breathing."

"Didn't need to breathe. Mother was connected to our blood, because we weren't Terrian." shrugged the boy.

The Balancer dropped to all fours, palms and feet, and became all serious, her albaster staff laid out before her fingertips. "I can carry the red life water inside of you, with me." she whispered. "No being here will Turn or go to the final black." she promised.

The Eden Advance group rose to their feet from their meal at a nod from Danziger to come over and join in with the conversation.

Devon knelt by Uly, who was accepting hair caresses from the Balancer as she satisfied her curiosity about his head fur as it moved in the cool, bitter wind. "Balancer, will this ...travel.. be through this?" she asked, holding up a handful of peach sand from between her feet and pouring it out between her fingers.

The pure white Terrian, trilled and softly placed her hand onto the ground. "Into the Moonless. Yes. Through the places where your Exo machina will stop the Turning."

Morgan Martin started shaking his head and waving his hands. "Oh, no.. no way am I going to submit to being buried alive and dragged for G*d knows how far, under that creepy *ss dirt. Over my dead body." he emphasized pointedly. "Don't you have to be awake for that?!"

"Morgan..." Bess hissed, embarrassed by her husband's anxiety over earthwalking. She led him away to help him work out his fear.

Yale was thoughtful. "I've been thinking about the geolocks.  
"

"What about?" John asked him.

"When Mr. Martin used one last, the suspended stasis effect was circular and expanded out and wider, from the unit itself. Correct?" the tutor offered with a sweep of his robotic fingers. "It was concentric?"

"Yes. That's right." nodded Devon. "But I don't quite follow you, Yale."

The big Jaimacan cyborg angled his head and tried another tact. "Why are we seeking the edge of the extinction zone? Shouldn't we be seeking the point of origin where the infection first began, in the middle of the death zone to deploy the geolocks?"

"We can't." Julia explained. "Bennet's ship and its crew's bodies are Patients Zero."

"And those are buried under a mountain of burning hot sun stones the Mother and the Terrians placed there, remember?"  
Danziger said.

"Then how-" the cyborg began.

Morgan broke away from the comforting embrace Bess was using to soothe him away from his stress, in a burst of nervous energy."We don't need to be at Ground Zero to launch a stasis probe. You can enter a set of coordinates as a radius distance, Bennet's ship to the still alive boundary line and aim a pointer towards first numerical entry to tell the geolock interface from exactly there, to start ..converting its holding field. We need to be out of the extinction circle so we don't get caught by the geolock effect."

"Wait a minute." said Cameron. "I'm no whiz at GPS, but don't you need a satellite to project and set up something like that remotely?"

Mr.. Martin refused to look at the Cargo. "...yes." he finally said.

"No way, Morgan. We are NOT going to re-establish ties with E.V.E. to carry the launch signal. That computer was manic for lack of a better word. She STILL is! We all almost died because of her!" snapped Danziger.

Julia Heller looked pale. "I'm willing to risk being the gear link back to the Council holograms. E.V.E. still needs those to talk to us."

Both Adair and Danziger protested. Loudly. "No,...no, Julia." "Absolutely not."

Heller insisted, getting louder than they. "I have the most experience of anyone here to handle their more hostile personas. They can no longer force me to act against my own wishes."

Before the crash landed colonists could erupt into a full blown argument storm for or against, the Balancer jumped up onto her tip toes on a rock. "I can go to the Exo pod outside the Mother, Beloveds." she trilled in Space Common out loud. "My life water does not need your air sacs gas to stay in the now. You can dream to me the Exo Machina talk to start its ice fire. I can go. To the Big Black. It is but a short starwalk. Not as far as the moonwalks."

That declaration silenced Eden Advance. They had all thought the Terrians were fully terrestrial like they were.

John began to smile. "Our Balancer." he finally grinned, holding out a hand in introduction. "Meet.. G889's resident alien astronaut, people." he said at last.

It was decided.

"So,..." said Devon, an hour later. "It's the moon pools for conveying all of our vehicles. They're not alive. And... being earth carried by Balancer, one by one, for all of us." she said, finishing her drawing in the dirt of their multi-tiered journey back to healthy land.

"Can't I be drugged, Julia? I don't want to be conscious." Morgan minced.

Dr. Heller rolled her eyes. "You have to have an alert mind in order to bond with the Balancer during an earthwalk, Mr. Martin. She explained that very clearly. Her pair-walking mode is partially telekinetic. She needs to "see" you, to carry you."

'See what?" asked the timid business man.

"Your soul." Yale said mysteriously, just to goad the man into a better humor.

"For lack of a better word." Heller agreed. "It won't be that big of a deal. There'll be no feeling of suffocation because you won't be breathing during the whole trip."

"I won't be what?!" Martin said in shock, his panic setting off all over again.

Julia was patient. "The Balancer will be your life support system. Think of her as your scuba gear. She'll keep the dirt and sand away from your body as you sift ahead of her."

"Really?!" piped up True. "I want to be in front!" Danziger's daughter said happily.

"You will, Half Pint. That's how it works." John said, kissing her head affectionately. "The Balancer's a demigod, remember? She can't screw up like us mere mortals."

Julia thought up a possible complication. She turned to Balancer. "Umm. We have frozen embryos with us, Balancer. Our future meat foodstuf- uh, our domestic animals, in cryo-state tubes. Can you bring them along, as well? They are also, living Exo."

The Balance looked very surprised for an albino Terrian. She whirled around as if she were seeking something mentally, and not finding it. "Show me..." she said eagerly, excited.

Heller got up from her stump and said, "I'll be right back with one. Wait just a moment." she smiled. "You're going to love this."

True Danziger took advantage of the delay to make her first cautious approach near Balancer. It was her dad, rubbing off.  
Finally, the tom boy like girl spoke. "Balancer." she said. "C-Can you find Kitty's family for him? H-He's been looking all over for them. You saw how he made himself sick while trying, before the Mother cured him."

The pearl shaded Terrian went soft, knowing True to be a very young Exo being. She was careful not to frighten her. "I saw the bond ache in your small life Xeno. I... shall try." she said in trill-less English. "But first, your shell is ..damaged."

"I was shot." she said, trying not to flinch when the Balancer laid a hand on her stitched wounds.

"There." said the Terrian. "It is gone." she whispered, opening up her hand to let a few tenuous strands of teleported sutures drift away into the wind.

True gasped in relief. "I'm not itching. How did you do that?"

"You, are Exo life. I am Xeno. I saw how it was, and made it how it is meant to be while in the now." the Balancer shrugged.

Behind them Yale started laughing in delight at True's confounded expression at the provided vague answer. "True Girl. Balancer knows what is healthy and what is not yet so. Her new essence and powers simply returns things to their full life state."

Morgan was made to face his current paper tiger. Bess made him go over to Uly with his endless worries about earthwalking. The pale urban businessman was carrying two mugs of nutri-powder tea as a peace offering. He handed the boy one of them and squatted down nervously next to him, trying not to look at the overly curious white Terrian, who was in a like pose, studying him. "U-Uly.. I...hope you don't take any offense by what I'm about to say...I.. well, I'll just out with it. Uly, I don't ...like you. I mean, we're not exactly mortal enemies at each other's throats but.." he heaved a great sigh and downed his tea in one gulp to fortify himself. "Let's face it, Kiddo. It's nothing personal but a year ago you.. turned really weird.. um.. because of..." he gingerly pointed at Balancer, trying to hide his finger behind his mug, while doing it. "...you know. Her kind. And I don't think I can handle that very well."

Cameron was not enjoying Morgan's whigging out. "There hasn't been a single moment where you could handle anything, on this whole journey since you stole away on our ship, Mr. Industrial Suit." the Cargo spat.

"Cameron! I didn't steal away. I got on the wrong ship." Mr. Martin insisted.

"Were both you and your wife really that dumb that day?" Cameron asked, not smiling friendly. "Cause I know of the two of you, she's not."

Bess got to her feet and got between Morgan and the Cargo. "No need to step on any toes, gentlemen. This gal with the smarts knows both of you are only knuckle dragging because you're both emoters. This is about two men. Not feeling great about what we have to do next! So shut up, Cargo and let my man have a civil conversation with Uly."

"Hear hear." grumbled the voice of authority in John Danziger as he lowered his eyes in a warning glare. "There's enough stress going around as it is. Cork it, Cameron. Martin's blameless about the sabotage which got us here. That's a proven fact so quit spouting off. If you want to find something to keep you busy, why don't you start pack up. We'll most likely be "leaving" in a few minutes."

His statement chilled the group into silence because trusting Balancer deep underground was the biggest unknown that they would have to face yet, to date.

"Fear is exhausting." said Yale. "But it doesn't have to rule us. We're not animals."

"Yes, we are." snickered Alonzo. "We're 98% chimpanzee, Yale. Get it straight."  
His quip finally broke the tension enough that everybody went back to some semblance of normal activity about their camp.

Uly was still waiting patiently for Martin to finish his venting, with his fingers laced around his pulled up knees. "Go ahead, Mr. Martin. I'm listening."

"So am I." trilled Balancer at them.

Morgan visibly flinched. The white Terrian used Earther English like a pro.

Bess patted his shoulder. "She's been paying attention to me. And just...picked it up." she shrugged.

"I liked her better when she couldn't talk." Morgan hissed between his teeth at Bess self consciously. Then the Adair boy's faintly yellow glowing eyes could no longer be denied. "I have to ask little man. Can we trust her like we trust gravity to trip us up?"

Adair didn't even hesitate. "She won't let us fall, Mr. Martin. She's one of us now."


	14. Chapter 14

Eden Advance's doctor returned with one of the frosty cryo cylinders from the domestics crate. "I brought you one, Balancer. This... is what we call a chicken. It hasn't been born yet into being independent. It's what we call an embryo. And it's frozen. It won't grow until we warm it up. We've saved non-mobile sun life, too, what we call plants."

The Balancer crouched low with a first look of fear that the colonists had never seen on a Terrian's face before. "It is an exo-machina... cradle?! It does not have a mother!" she trilled in fear. "You took this one away from his! Why?"

Uly stood and ran over to the frightened Terrian. "It's all right. Stay warm, Balancer. We did not steal this egg-without-a-shell from his family."

The cyborg tutor offered more. "In our star place back home, chickens are meant to provide for humans, like the eyestalks do for us now. They grow their eggs and they have body meat we need. And it's okay for us to take them when we're hungry."

The part Terrian boy whispered gently. "Here,..." he said, taking the cyro timer tube from Heller. "The life water in his heart, is fine. This one's just sleeping. See?"  
Ulysses carefully guided Balancer's opalescent hands around the icy cylinder. "The chicken is just waiting for us to tell it when to grow. Just like the maglocks are waiting for us to tell them when and how big of an area of land to put to sleep for a while, to end this Phage that my kind release into our world."

True Danziger stepped forward quickly. "But don't wake him up now. He's too stupid to follow us like the eyestalks do. His brain is too small."

Bess Martin added. "We've only just recently gentled birds."  
"Ten thousand years of farming and animal domestication is recent?" chuckled Yale.

"On the scale of G889's ecology. Yes, it is." replied Bess.

"He's a... bird? Ah. That is your bigger word for..chick-en. Can he fly like a wind catcher?" Balancer asked in wonder.

"A Koba glider? I think so." Uly frowned. "Mom, what do you think?"

Devon just shrugged. "I've never seen a live animal until we arrived here, Uly. You know that."

Bess stepped forward, reaching out to store the chicken embryo again. "At least they do try. I've seen them in trees on Earth. I'll go put him away, Balancer. Give him here."

The Terrian reluctantly gave the cryotube back to Mrs. Martin. "That is a small life not made well then." Balancer said sadly. "Do you want me to change that?" she asked the boy eagerly, with a tremble of distaste at the chicken's flaws.

John and all of the adults, quickly shook their heads at Uly behind her back.

"Maybe later." Uly's sudden excitement over the offer faded with his sigh. He told the white Terrian no. "We've got other stuff to do first."

Balancer nodded, taking the boy's guidance to heart. "I can move your Half Made, now that I see where they are. Would you like to Go now?"

A shiver of anticipation made John Danziger's bowels flip. "Uh.. not just yet. We need our supplies and vehi- ah, exo-machina travelers, made more condensed. We call it packing up. Makes things easier to move. Can you wait until we're through doing that? We've also this cook fire to put out."

Balancer tilted her head. "Why do you need to heat the food? It is not harmful to you, even after it Ends."

Julia started laughing. "A habit I guess. We have bacteria in our bodies, that are the same sized small things like the Turning, that we need to metabolize our food. It's called digestion."

"Ah,... randomizing bulk solids into uniform energy bits to consume." Balancer agreed. "Does your collection of inside-the-body small life harm you at times? I see how many different colors of them that there are."

Julia nodded. "When they are too few, or too many, or not the right mix; they can. If this population becomes too high or too low, we get sick. We become...weak and start to Turn. We can even die, in just a few sun cycles, if concentrations get really bad.. if things aren't what's normal for us. We call these in-the-body-small-life, bacteria. We cannot live without them, Balancer."

"Please do not End. I am your Mother."

"We'll try not to." John Danziger promised straight faced. He had pre-conceived notions of naivety that wasn't helping matters any, mentally.  
::Prejudice is a double edged sword. Even in the best of us.:: he thought. ::I hate that it's a struggle to become widely open minded about this place and everything in it. I guess I'm still too G*d d*mned human.:: But still, no part of him wished to become part Terrian like Uly and Julia had. The thought gave him the willies.

Heller went on carefully, teaching Balancer. "We also have life water small bits, that are the controllers that keep them at the right numbers we need to stay alive. White blood cells."

"Little mothers! They look like me!" exclaimed Balancer in amazement, peering at her own scales and skin.

Julia tried to smile under the pressure of Balancer's microscopic level probing, with her light blue eyes. "They're truly white, I guess. They are part of what we call an immune system. Another kind, identifies the bad bits, marks them, and then clings onto them, to slow them down enough for the little mothers to eat. They're called antibodies."  
"Why are they anti or against you?" the curious Terrian asked.

"They aren't. They're against the bad bits, the germs. Antibody is probably a poor word picked for naming them." she shrugged.

Heller gestured empathetically. "They're actually very good things, absolutely crucial for our well being and survival. A person who doesn't have them, doesn't last long."

"I see now. I shall protect you, along with these defending body children you have inside." said the Balancer, shaking her moonlight flecked head.

Julia Heller whispered aside to Yale. "Just wait until she sees our cells' mitochondria, the bacteria that never left, so that they could become human."

"One mystery at a time, doctor. Terrians might be borderline xenophobes like we are." warned the tutor. "G889 herself might decide not to keep us going if we don't learn how to fit in as fast as possible."

Devon Adair agreed. "We can't be very popular in local eyes right now, by any scope of the imagination."

Yale talked to Bess. "Did you save some like we've discussed?"

The fair ringlet curled Martin flashed a few dimples at the tutor. "Do you mean, did I save samples of everybody's sh*t containing all of our gut fauna into cryo cylinders? Oh, yes. I know what diarrhea feels like and I don't have to talk to Julia to know how to fix it. One scoop of personalized crap into each respective dinner bowl cures all." she giggled. "I promise not to tell anybody if that kind of first aid situation ever crops up."

"It's our secret. The doctor's request." Yale winked.

It was time. All three moons were aligned into the last annual eclipse and all of their gear had already been transferred through a nearby moon pool by Balancer, to the edge. Their new Terrian colony member said that she had placed them a bit away from the still living boundary line after the acid mist in the portal had sterilized all of their air touching surfaces. The humans had chosen to be conveyed towards the direction of the sun's dawn so that they would have the earliest first light available to them with which to work the maglocks, after the final Moon Cross. Balancer had already moved every creature and Terrian from the dead zone to anywhere that she knew was safely beyond it.

Julia Heller had asked the question of Balancer. "How are you going to clean us of the Phage like you did all of our equipment? We're so dirty with body children, Balancer."

The albino tilted her head. "I have been sending all of the black, which has been going into, and emerging from you Exos, into an acid lake. The Turning small life, does not stay in the now there. It ends forever. Your little mothers will tend to the rest that I cannot see, until it is gone."

"That's some decontamination process. Continual telekinesis?" Yale wondered.

"Do I move it with the mind? Yes." she replied. "It is a but a simple task."

Julia was thoughtful. "Hmm, we're not sick, but our lab germ should be killed off like normal, in a week to ten days. Thanks for the free bathing you're giving us now, Balancer. Humans are not pure from other small life, that might possible do more harm, when it changes later on. Evolving quickly to new forms is in a bacteria's nature."

"I know how to recognize black. Another Turning, will not happen again. You will no longer be the cause if I remain with you in your travels. Any new black in the yet to come, will not be allowed to use any teeth inside of Xenos or Exos. I and my Mother will not allow it."

John adjusted his dust mask in the red moonlight and finally took a hands on hips stance in the center of their clustered gathering.  
"Balancer. We've another Exo people thing we have to talk about. We're not the only humans here on G889. When we first crashed down, we not only found evidence of penal colonists who stole most of our jettisoned cargo pods, we actually met a few of them face to face. It...wasn't pretty."

"Gaal." True whispered, half frightened, half mad at the memory of the scraggly megalomaniac. Grendlers, held enslaved by the power of his Terrian bone necklace, eventually tore Gaal apart in the wake of an insanity that their years long suffering experience, had wrought in them.

John Danziger could only hope those mad Grendlers had died out on their own afterwards. "He was their leader, Balancer. And he was the one who taught Xenos how to... end a being." he said reluctantly.

Balancer didn't have the reaction of shocked innocence that the mechanic was expecting. She asked a question. "Like you would with a chicken? For sustenance and comfort?"

"No... To kill, means to end another's life, with hate, for no reason of survival at all." he replied.

The Balancer turned away from them all, without speaking further. The naturally sparkling rainbow light that usually danced around the Terrian, appeared to dim on her faceted scales, along with her spirit.  
She looked up at the two red moons, and gripped her white Terrian staff in both of her clawed hands. "That is ... a flaw ...I cannot understand.. I can't see it." she trilled. "Nor can I touch it in you. It is.. a mind law set into body memory, in a place I cannot change. How do you not go mad having it there so close to your hearts?"

"Genes are integral. They make up what we are. We can't just-" Julia began.

Devon Adair took in a deep breath, and interrupted the doctor. "I suppose our intelligence keeps that instinct at bay, Balancer. If all of any human's basic needs are met, the danger of... being able to kill, doesn't surface in us."

"And for sure, this occurs, not at all, in the normal born." Yale confirmed. "Only in the malformed, either by birth or by experiencing unrelieved long term pain."

"So who was this Gaal, that the small female young life just named?" the alabaster Terrian asked levelly. They could see, that she was thinking hard and very, very long about something, before being given any answer.

"A human who had been so badly treated by his own kind after he was abandoned here, that it warped his soul into committing murder, Balancer." the tutor replied. "He wanted to possess our very own True. And for that, we tricked him into becoming a victim among his own Xeno born slaves."

"And what... is a slave?" Balancer asked, quietly, growing sad and very still where she stood.

Uly replied. "Any person, who's being forced to work, against their will."

"And what are these acts of ending others' free movements or their sacred now time, called? What heart feeling has that name?" she hissed in confusion, an unidentifyable emotion began filling her pale features, as she experienced ugliness for the first time in her entire existence. "I do... not have a speaking... that can describe any ...of what you have said."

The tall lanky mechanic tilted his head up reluctantly, and John found that he had to try twice before he could take in a breath, to speak out loud. Yale saw that he was not meeting the Balancer's eyes with this own.

"No, John." the tutor warned, figuring it out way before any of the others. "This is not a wise thing to do." The burly cyborg took a step forward.

Danziger's huge fists tightened into a ball on each hand, a gesture which stopped the converted convict, mild though he was, dead in his tracks.

"I'm going to tell her the truth about us, Yale. I will not lie to the Terrians any more." John hissed. "For that would be committing, yet again, another betrayal tossed onto the whole f-ing pile that's already been heaped onto this planet a mile deep by humans. Doesn't matter if most of that was done by some of us long before the rest of us were marooned here. It's got to stop sometime. It's going to stop here. Today."

"Danziger.. wha-?" Devon started to ask.

"It's violent, Balancer." Danziger said morosely. "For this ...action and reaction, in here." he said, gesturing to his chest, "Boy, do we do have a word for this trait. My kind, is frequently guilty of it. Earth, our place of origin, is a planet full of... predators. It's our word for those who prey on other beings, as a way of life. Balancer, it's a well known fact, that... we humans... are on the top of the food chain there."

"Have you taken prey here.. Predator John Dan-zig-er?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Y-Yes." he replied, full of fright. "A Grendler female. Last winter." He began to cry. Hot tears flooded down John's face, during his whole confession, to a god. "To survive a storm, I had to eat her."

The Balancer let out a howl at the moons above her and she leaped as far back from the humans as she could, collapsing all at once into a tight ball of misery. "Save yourselves!" she wailed to the small life watching them. Eyestalks everywhere began shrieking vocally, and then one by one, they started popping back under the ground, sending up plumes of dust and decay as they fled the surface. Sunlight suddenly stabbed down onto the colonists as the third eclipse's deep red shadow suddenly left them fully exposed to blistering heat and blinding luminescence as it ended rapidly.

"Noo! Balancer! We'll starve without them! What are you doing to us?!" yelled Morgan, leaping onto his stomach, taking a desperate snatch at the closest shrinking eye stalk clump. Those he managed to grab, screamed. Morgan screamed even louder in surprise when they began jerking back and forth like startled snakes in his hands. He dropped them all, losing the last of them to the dirt.

The albino Terrian gave the panicking man a new terrified look at what he had tried to do to the small life that she had commanded. She disappeared, diving head first, into the pink sand under their feet, an instant later. Then she was gone.

Stunned, Eden Project found themselves utterly abandoned, empty handed. They had been left behind. Alone on the plain..

Every one of them fell to their knees when seconds later, a telepathic dream message lanced through their heads. They saw, through the Balancer's eyes, that they were in the middle of a vast continent, full of nothing, but death.


End file.
